Jaclyn Duket's Blog #9

This chapter relates to Theme 4 in several ways. The idea of "ease of learning" is reflected through the suggestions in Chapter 7. The design elements that Hoeckman discusses such as visual hierarchy, proportion, alignment, typography, and spatial memory allow the user to automatically understand the importance of information on a page. The user doesn't have to (or hardly has to) learn how to use an application if the information is displayed in these ways that people are already trained to view information. These design elements along with other things discussed in the chapter, such as consistency and utilizing existing patterns, enable to user to learn very minimal new ways of navigating through a page.

Urban Outfitters' website is a good example of a web page that uses Theme four as well as many techniques discussed in Chapter 7. First, the navigation for the different departments is located at the top of the page. This remains consistent as you move through the page, which allows the user to quickly navigate through the different departments without having to think about how. These links are easy to spot and allow the user to find them quickly. Second, the pagination design is consistent with most other popular pages (google.com is discussed in the reading). This is familiar to users so they do not have to move quickly to the next page. Thirdly, the typography is consistent throughout the site for viewing items and purchasing them. Lastly, most of the text and images on the main pages are in black and white or very dull colors. The website uses color to illuminate the current page the viewer is on and the shopping cart. This allows the user to quickly identify where they are navigate quickly to the shopping cart for purchasing.