We’ve made a number of small but hopefully useful changes to the ICANN website this morning.
The reason is that one of the most common complaints we hear is that it is difficult to find things on the site, or to navigate around.
One of the problems is the number of tabs we had at the top of the page – several of which overlapped – what is the difference between “documents” and “resources”? Why have a separate “structure” tab? What purpose does “events” serve? We also wanted to make the increasing archives of videos and photos more readily accessible and that would meaning adding yet more tabs to an already cluttered masthead.
So the solution we have hit upon is to use the common practice of having links at the bottom of the page as well as at the top. The bottom links lead to precise pages for precise requirements and as a result are often less important in the overall scheme that links at the top which lead into different sections. So if you can’t find a tab you normally click on, it will be at the bottom of the page.
At the same time, we have also made a few changes so that you won’t have to scroll down the page for material that you visit often. So:
- Everything you can get by clicking the Structure tab is also included in the About tab (which is at the top)
- Everything under the News tab is also included in the About tab
- Everything under the Resources tab is now on the front page in the main three-column box (in the right-most column)
At the same time, we have also updated and improved the content boxes on the right so that you can instantly click through to: the latest announcements, the latest public comment periods, and the latest blog posts. Links in the header of each of these boxes leads you straight to the relevant overall page.
We are pretty confident that all this combined will mean that in a month’s time, when you have all got used to the slight changes, more than half of the searches for content that took two clicks of the mouse should take just one; and more than half of the three-clicks will take two-clicks.
Of course we welcome feedback – although we would urge you to get used to the changes first – so please do add your comments below.