Common Look and Feel (CLF) navigation sub-group
Recommendations for the current CLF
10. Page Headings should match navigational links/items. These should act as meaningful labels.
13. A separate sub-committee, independent of the navigation subcommittee, should be formed, as soon as possible, to investigate search strategies technology for campus.
Recommendations for the next version of the CLF
1. All future changes to navigation should be properly documented. Each navigational items should be clearly defined with recommendations for their use, appropriate CSS and best practices guidelines.
2. Navigation terminology should be reviewed when the website isredesigned. The navigation terms for the Faculties are fairly consistent but there is enough variation that a standard needs to be defined. Some effort should be put into defining terms and placement of common links for non-academic sites.
3. A decision should be made on how navigation items are ordered when the website is redesigned. Are navigation items to be ordered alphabetically or logically?
4. Navigation options should be more flexible to meet the needs of sites with specific navigational needs when the website is redesigned. The Committee found a number of non-standard navigational techniques being used.
5. A standard format should be developed for sitemaps, breadcrumbs and tables of contents when the website is redesigned. The Committee felt that, regardless of whether the CLF is tweaked or completely re-written, a standard for these items would be useful.
6. Breadcrumbs should be implemented if or when the technology to automate these is available. In the absence of such a technology, the work of implementing breadcrumbs, though useful, would be too daunting and difficult to maintain.
7. A method of grouping like items on the left-side menu should be considered when the website is redesigned. The style used at Nebraska-Lincoln might be a good model to emulate.
8. Suggestions for various uses of the right-hand sidebar would be helpful now. Too many different techniques are currently being used.
9. Consideration should be given to creating a horizontal top menu that would be consistent and mandatory across all Waterloo web pages when the website is redesigned. This would provide access to key central web pages from all pages in the Waterloo domain. Such a menu could include either the key audience groups or key navigational pages (e.g., Faculties & Colleges, Services, etc.).
11. The use of a Drop-down menu for common administrative applications (MyHR, mywaterloo, Quest, UW-ACE) should be considered in a new website design. These are useful items and using this technique would allow all of them to be accessible without taking up a lot of screen space.
12. All changes to the navigation structure in the CLF should be compliant with Accessibility standards set out by the W3C and U.S. section 508 (pending similar legislation in Canada).