Importance of labeling
di gotoandplay
Importance of labeling
Posted by: gotoandplay
Often, maybe too often, I stumble upon sites where the labeling system has been put together in a very arbitrary way, making it extremely difficult for a first time visitor to find information. Today was the case of the official City of Rome web site. The project is not terrible, and this is already a little miracle in the often depressing scenario of public administration web sites. However, the labeling is at least counterintuitive and most of the time random clicking is the only way to find what you are looking for.
The site proudly shows not one but two W3C compliance logos at the bottom, but shamelessly lack of any criteria or even common sense when it comes to naming the different buckets of information. That's how you end up in perplexity discovering that the most populated section in the main navigation, vaguely named "Aree Tematiche", is in reality a huge container for information so different in nature that they would have deserved a better labeling, if not a bucket of its own. The section is in fact a gateway for services of all kind, form birth certificates to stats and professional training. The little gem is a sub-section within Aree Tematiche named "Personale" (either Personal or Personnel in Italian), but of course the only way to find out is to waste a few more clicks and drill deeper. Hey, you always have your "back" button after all...!
I've come to the simple conclusion that the main reason why labeling is often neglected is that most of the times there are no information architects involved in the development, and the information, although clearly defined, is not translated from the technical writing into a language that would provide the most rewarding and smoothest user experience. Content writers are normally lightly picked from the staff, they are experts at what they do, but usually have no clue on how to write understandable content for the average Joe. The concept of focus groups is still too far away from being considered a standard on all web projects and that is a true shame. A few test could have revealed huge holes in this site's AI but still, those two W3C logos say a lot about where the attention has been focused. Accessibility is a much broader term than most people think...