[Sigia-l] "meta-"navigation

Donna M. Fritzsche donnamarie at amichi.info
Fri Jun 3 07:28:42 EDT 2005


Hi Donna,
I don't like the term, but the argument could be made that a Site Map, one of 
the items usually included in this set, is content about "the (organization 
of) content" and is therefore "meta".  That is possibly where the term 
derived its name. 

I realize that doesn't account for the "navigation" part of the phrase.

I prefer the phrase supplemental or utilities.  I like utilities because the 
comparison can be made to home utilities that should be easily accessible, 
are well-understood, and often serve the function of  facilitating.  

There is a good list and some comments in Steve Krug's book "Don't Make Me 
Think" on p66.

Donna


On Fri, 03 Jun 2005 13:54:31 +1000, Donna Maurer wrote
> I'd guess that the term didn't come about because the items are meta 
> (at a higher conceptual level) to the site, but because they are 
> frequently placed at the top 
> (higher physical level)  ;)
> 
> I still think these are supplemental navigation (and I have taught 
> them as being such for years). They are often outside of the core IA 
> and are additional/supplementary to the core content.
> 
> Donna
> 
> On 3 Jun 2005 at 13:36, Eric Scheid wrote:
> > 
> > I don't think it is a completely nonsense term: there is navigation to
> > pages which are meta to the site (eg. 'about', 'privacy', 'copyright',
> > etc), and thus could be termed "meta-navigation" in the same sense
> > that the "local" in Local Navigation also refers to the link
> > referents, not the actual links themselves (in which case the only
> > "local navigation" link in common use today would be a "skip over nav
> > links to get to content" link).
> > 
> > If there's a better term, then lets hear it.
> > 
> > e.
> > 
> -- 
> Donna Maurer
> blog: http://maadmob.net/donna/blog/
> work: http://steptwo.com.au/
> AOL IM: maadmob
> 
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