image related
You ever roll up on a Walmart in a new town that you've never been to before yet somehow already know EXACTLY where what you need is going to be? Mind you, this store is not the exact same as the one you have been using back home. It has different offerings (maybe a little more corn merch than you're used to), and the square footage of the storefront itself is not the same as what you're used to. Somehow though, you manage to find your way through with ease. Every time I go to a grocery store, I marvel at how fast this is, and I am overjoyed to know that this is no coincidence
Standardization and the power of navigation
Grocery stores have a natural flow to them, an engineered rhyme and reason that helps you find your way around, and store planners take great effort in making thier stores as understandble (and likely to sell products) as possible. Webpages are almost the exact same in this regard. In our reading today from Steve Krug, we discussed what makes a good navigation system on a website so your users can find their ways around, and I was loving every minute of it. Common things we take for granted such as breadcrumbs, standardized scroll bars, properly calibrated search tools, and more, were all created through years upon years of study and trial and error in the webdev field, and, in the year 2023, it would be wise to educate yourself on what those before you have already accomplished.
Core Values
Our reading did not end, however, at just a simple discussion on proper navigation design. We also had a wonderful discussion on understanding what someone's values might be, how hard it is to condense someone down into just a few words, and how your values may relate to what makes a proper team. Mr. Breck pulls most of his content from the amazingly talented Brené Brown's "Dare to Lead", and I would highly recommend checking out the book and the article yourself. The section on how difficult it is to create an emphasis on quality in a team culture was particularly interesting.
Credit
https://blog.colinbreck.com/understanding-our-core-values-an-exercise-for-individuals-and-teams
Krug, Steve. Don't Make Me Think, Revisited : a Common Sense Approach to Web Usability. [Berkeley, Calif.] :New Riders, 2014.