Digital Preservation Coalition

Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox   •   December 7, 2009   •   SUMMARY: "Designing for cavemen." That's how Nielsen describes his approach toward Web design that takes into account human limitations in short-term memory (for instance, the average human brain can hold only seven chunks of information at a time and these fade from memory within 20 seconds). Check out the article for some suggestions on how to create menus that are manageable (too short is almost as bad as too long) and create a common sense Web navigation strategy that makes the most of those precious 20 seconds.   •   COMMENT: It's worth reviewing that "Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two" < http://www.musanim.com/miller1956/ > paper (or at least the overviews that are readily available -- there was a nice Radio Lab piece < http://www.prx.org/pieces/30643#description > on it not so long ago). Seven is really the span for digits -- it's probably less for words. (Michalko) < http://hangingtogether.org/?page_id=12 >