Nevertheless, this is my blog so I’m allowed to brag all I want. The first thing I have to brag about is that I have not failed any exams in the 3 years I have been in Denmark! Job interviews, group school exams, individual school exams and Danish exams. They were all owned, so take that! Ok, now I’m actually starting to feel bad about bragging…

Reversing the timeline, I want to mention the wonderful Easter holiday I had while in Romania and that I’m waiting to go back there for another quick one-month holiday this summer. Therefore, it is highly unlikely anyone will be able to get a hold of me in the online during July.

On a completely different topic, I’m part of a group of 4 individuals who enjoy playing Quake III Arena every other night. Should you think you can match up with 3 really pissed off guys and a girl who can have a wonderful smile and kick your ass at the same time, you are more than welcome to contact me and we’ll figure something out.

Oh, before I wrap up: if anyone has a really good resource for learning how to work with both the Zend Framework and the Zend Studio, please share the information in the comment-area. You would bring even more happiness in the life of the long-bearded-man.

Problem Formulation

What are the advantages and disadvantages of using a navigation type, when considering different types of websites? Should there be a different approach towards navigation within Rich Internet Applications and if so, which?

Overview

The book “Designing Web Navigation”, published by O’Reilly in 2007 defines Web Navigation as the theory and practice of how people move from page to page on the web while also being a process of goal-directed seeking and locating hyperlinked information.

It consists of all the elements that provide users access to pages while helping them orientate through the website they are interacting with.

Navigation can be classified in three main categories, based on their function inside a website: structural, associative and utility.

Structural Navigation

This type of navigation follows the structure of a website, allowing users to easily navigate through different hierarchical pages of a website. Based on the level of hierarchy, the structural navigation is further divided into main navigation and local navigation.

The main navigation has to be a persistent navigation mechanism across the website, at the same time allowing users to get to the other sections of the website in an efficient way. Local navigation is used to access lower levels in a structure, being confined to a certain category or section of a website. However, it is common for a local navigation to be accessible from another local navigation. Providing the user with such a possibility has the risk of over-clustering the interface of the website and disorients the user, thus achieving the exact opposite of the desired effect.

Associative Navigation

It includes those links that share a connection with the current displayed information. Its standardized subtypes are mostly based on the location of the navigation links relative to the content but are not constrained by this: contextual navigation, quick links and footer navigation.

Contextual navigation is either embedded in the text itself or is present at the end or the side of the content, connecting the meaning of the hyperlinked text with the hyperlinked reference. As presented in the “Designing Web Navigation” book, printed by O’Reilly, Quick Links “provide access to important content or areas of the site that may not be present in the global navigation”. As for the Footer Navigation, it usually includes either functional links such as printing the respective page, sending the link via e-mail, etc. or may give the user access to information which should be easy to obtain yet not important enough to be part of the structural navigation, such as the Terms and Conditions of the website, Copyright Information, etc.

Utility Navigation

Elements belonging to this type of navigation are considered to connect the visitor of the website to the tools and features that assist them and/or enhance their experience. As opposed to the functional navigational elements prior presented, the functional elements present in the Utility Navigation have a higher impact. The elements present in the Utility Navigation depend on the type of website which they belong to but a rough classification would include: Language and Country Selectors, Toolboxes, Extra-site Navigation, etc.

Discussion

No matter of the genre (type) of a website, a good navigation design is required to give the visitor an intuitive and flawless movement and actions throughout the website.

The following website types are based on a classification presented in the “Designing Web Navigation” book, previously mentioned.

Knowing that visitors can quickly recognize the intent of the website based on existing knowledge and expectations, we can state there are some characteristics which are common for different types (genres) of sites. As the particularities for the Structural Navigation are the same, independent on the type of the website, the following presented characteristics are mostly relevant to the associative navigation and the utility navigation.

Information Sites

• Having diverse target groups, it is important that the navigation gives a good overview of the website, while following common design practices and navigational patterns, reducing the learning curve.
• Associative navigation linking to a different type of media than the expected one is expected to be suggested to the visitor. (For example, text-embedded linking to a PDF file is expected to be suggested by displaying the PDF icon next to the hyperlink)
• Functional navigation that invites users to different actions relevant to the content are expected not to impair the visitor in retrieving the desired information while also giving him fast access to them. A bad-practice example would be the over-cluttering of websites with Social Media sharing links.

E-commerce Sites

• E-commerce is all about selling products. Therefore, visitors are expecting to meet a common navigation practice and not be surprised by it. Failing in doing so will not only confuse the visitor, withdrawing him from receiving relevant product information but could also persuade him into not trusting the website as unfamiliarity often equals with trust.
• Associative links should be present where relevant and persuade users to visit more of the website and implicitly ordering more products. A common practice is using a “Related Products” or “Those who bought this product also bought…” type of box.

Corporate Intranets

• Efficiency is the keyword of the corporate intranet navigation. Having a hard time finding the desired information and functionalities could cause high expenses to the company since time would be used in a non-efficient manner.
• It is advisable to use a clear navigation and put emphasis on the utility navigation as well as on the functional navigation.
• It is also preferable to avoid embedded links. The users could have difficulties searching for the appropriate link in a large text cluster.

Community Sites

• Being a place for people with similar interests to share ideas and discuss topics, the navigation for community sites should enhance and encourage these activities. As an example, giving contextual links to similar discussed topics might be a good idea.
• Utility navigation is critical since users need to be aware of the effect and location of their actions, such as submitting a new topic in a forum.

Entertainment Sites

• As there is a large diversity of entertainment sites existing on the internet and the way they entertain their visitors, experimentation with navigation is commonly accepted. However, differentiation between the main navigation and the other types of navigation must be carefully thought of.

Learning Sites

• Navigation on the learning sites should be a combination between the navigation of the information websites and the navigation of the corporate intranets. Therefore, it is safe to say it should be clear and simple, leaving no room for errors as any flaw in the navigation could cost its visitors during a test. Not following a common navigation design pattern could cause the test-takers to submit an answer or a paper without them realizing it.

Identity Sites

• A company’s website has the purpose to support and boost the image and of the company and its brand. Being a part of the website, the navigation has the same effect on the company and its image. Thus, in order to inspire honesty and respect, the navigation has to be as clear and as straight-forward as possible, not leaving room for interpretations.
• Depending on the size of the company and its profile, the navigation has to give easy access to the most important and desired areas of the website. For example: press releases, contact information, etc.

Rich Internet Applications

• Unlike the website navigation, Rich Internet Applications navigation does not necessarily take the user from one page to another one but usually provide the user access inside the application itself.
• Being different in concept than the ordinary type of websites, Rich Internet Applications (commonly referred to as R.I.A.) make use of different and diverse navigation manners.
• Common functionalities are expressed using a common set of unwritten, yet established, rules.
• It is worth mentioning that navigation through Rich Internet Applications imply a faster (usually instant) feedback.

Conclusions

Navigation Design Patterns have to be kept. Experimentation is advised to be kept to a minimum.

Independent on the type of website we build, it is important to orientate the user into fulfilling both his needs and ours.

References

• Designing Web Navigation, James Kalbach – published by O’Reilly Media, 2007
• Wikipedia
• Website Structural Navigation – Noah Lazar, Michael Eisenbrey – University of Maryland, Department of Computer Science, 2000 http://otal.umd.edu/SHORE2000/webnav/index.html

My code: header("location:blabla.php");

Warning:  Cannot modify header information - headers already sent  by (output started at  [..]/connect.php:11) in [..]/general_action2.php on line 45

The website uses a session based authentication which, obviously needs a session_start() function to work. After spending a couple of minutes trying to switch all the actions from form-actioned-based to AJAX, I decided to write some dirty code and patch the things up. For now, at least…

print '<html><body onload="javascript:window.location=\'blabla.php\'"></body></html>';

I’ll be damned if I can suggest this option to anyone who wants to do some serious business but is efficient for the times when you need a fast fix.

First of all, I finished college. The project I was talking about in my last post got a 10 (that’s a B in the American grading system). The product itself was worth 12 (A) but, quite honestly, the examination was pretty cruel and I failed to answer the following questions:

• What is the difference between a normalized and denormalized table in a database? (I should have known the answer to this question but hey.. no regrets, right?)
• How can you store a PHP object inside a session? (I just couldn’t focus on giving an appropriate answer and was way too vague in the answer)
• Why didn’t I use JSON in order to send and receive the AJAX information? (I think the answer “I was just not very familiar with JSON and did not have enough time to go more into depth with it” was not really alright)

So, let’s put it this way: I am now a multimedia designer (literally, not just skillfully) and I’ll be finishing my bachelor in Web Development sometime next Winter. God damn, that seems so far away! Here’s a video I made out of 2 videos shot by one of my classmates and one of my teachers:

Those being sa(i)d, my life really revolves between going to work, watching the last 2 seasons of Seinfeld and any individual projects. Oh, and learning the regular expressions! I always bump into them so I guess now would be a good time to actually learn them!

On the other hand, the last week has been very entertaining from a metallic point of view as I got the chance to watch Soulfly, Master and Six Feet Under in 2 live performances, in Århus. Yeah, they were expensive but one should never refrain from actions which definitely gives him pleasures unless those pleasures are illegal but that’s a completely different aspect…

I’ll be coming home on the 22nd of July and I do not know what to expect. From any point of view. What’s even funnier is that I still haven’t bought a return ticket but I guess I’ll do it as soon as I get home though. Anyway, Scandinavian Airliens for the wins! I am so sick and tired of having a flight made out of 2 segments!

Can it get any worse? Yes it can! Bring it on, you mofo!

So, now that I am confident that you guys understood what life is like (fuck, if that doesn’t help you, just make a comparison between this picture and this other picture), you can read the other bla bla that I am going to post around here like:

• I’ll be in Romania between the 28th of January and the 13th of May, doing my internship at an awesome company (I might try to make a trip for a Hypocrisy concert in either Vienna or Sofia)
• Advanced Photoshop Techniques that you may not be aware of
• Thousands of Photoshop Brush Collections
• Got a 10 at the 3rd semester project exam and I’m waiting for the 3rd semester subject exam (it’s either I get a 2 or a 12, depending on which subject I draw from the hat)
• I miss my girl.
• I’m just waiting for things to go on their usual downward path. I literally know that I am at the peak of the quality of my life so that’s why I ain’t so happy about it. I am usually an optimistic dude but you have to know where you stand and not get over excited.

And to my few readers: I’m sorry for the lack of posts in the recent time. Meh, there’s no particular reason for that: I still care about the 2 of you, it’s just that I realized that this blog doesn’t help me improve my personal life nor my professional life and I assigned it a smaller number in the huge queue of my priority list.

Meanwhile, stuff has changed. I still feel a little bit like how I felt before my last visit to Romania in July this year (article about that here) but time surely changes things. To be honest, the only reasons I want to go back to Bucharest are my family and my friend. Yeah, you read it right, unfortunately it seems that I only have one friend left back home whom I can trust and whom I care about and I do that although he’s a bad ass ugly bastard. Other than that, I have all the reasons in the world to want to stay in Aarhus. I even got a double, 140cm wide double bed now so…

Comparing to last year, August – December 2009 was a lot better. I went out, I made friends, socialized, worked, programmed, made friends and learned how to live life at its fullest. I’ve learned to appreciate the simplest things in live and see good where there’s bad. This was about to cost me during the work upon the last project but since I promised to keep my mouth shut in regards to it, I will keep my word.

I’m 4 days away from being home now and I’m still wondering what to do till then. I am also wondering what to do in Romania but I can safely assume that my schedule is going to be easy to fill. Come to think about it, the first thing on my agenda starting now is a drinking session on my return to Aarhus on the 7th of January lol.

Last but not least, I would like to say that I hope you all passed your projects, exams and so on with high grades (or handed them in on time) and have a happy week until the Merry Christmas that is about to come! Oh, and if we haven’t spoken about this already or haven’t settled for anything and you want to meet for a mulled wine/beer/coffee/pool game, just drop me a line somewhere because maybe, just maybe, we can go out. Victor.. Out!

I remember when I was in the 6th grade and one of my classmates had a black and white (actually, black and orange) screened Alcatel 301. We were all playing on it, creating stupid ringtones on its software. And yes, some of us did consider him cool for having a mobile phone! Then I got to high school and everyone had a mobile phone. Come to think about it, when I got in high school, nobody really gave a crap about which mobile phone you had but then again, the iphone was not launched at that point.

Now I got to college and mobile phones are the least of anyone’s worries. Except receiving messages from extremely beautiful girls, my mobile phone is only used as an alarm for waking up in the mornings and evenings. However, the only gadget we can actually compare in class are the laptops and nobody seems to give a crap about them anyway! I mean, I do have this feeling that people owning a Toshiba are noobs but I am trying to change my mind…

I’ll just go back to the teenagers now. I honestly have no idea how they think like and how it is like to be a teenager. 5, 6 or 7 years ago we didn’t have any social media network on our hands (well, maybe MySpace but nobody really used it in Romania). When you liked someone, you were struggling to find out whether or not they have a boyfriend or girlfriend. You were dying to see them the next day at school since you couldn’t see any photos of them on hi5 and it also makes me sad to imagine how teens ask for the messenger id of the people they like.

Therefore, I would like to ask for anyone who has some info about this: how is it like to be a teenager, today? How often do you use the internet to contact your “friends” and how often do you actually interact through some old fashion methods?