Establishing a controlled vocabulary

Establishing a controlled vocabulary is an important part of making an information hierarchy usable. A controlled vocabulary defines how items the hierarchy will be labeled. For example, does this site offer On-line Banking or Internet Banking? Or should the label invite users to Bank On-line? What ever label you select, it needs to be used consistently throughout the site.

Effective labels for menu items provide scent — clues as to what information lies ahead (Larson 25). For example, on for a banking site the label Accounts has a stronger scent than Products because it more precisely characterizes the pages the user will find under that category.

In addition to providing a strong scent, labels should be short and easy for users to scan. However, clarity should not be sacrificed for the sake of brevity. Sometimes, an extra word makes the difference between a clear and unclear label:

The labels at the same level in the hierarchy must work well together as a menu list. For example, the labels for the top-level of Amazon.com’s hierarchy (as shown in Table 1) are all one either a one-word or two-word nouns. This is an example of parallel syntax, which makes lists easier for users to read.

The same idea-generating methods used for the hierarchy (brainstorming and competitive research) can be used in developing the labels. And although developing the hierarchy and creating the labels are presented here as two separate steps, in reality these are often done iteratively and concurrently, as each can influence the design of the other.

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