OVERVIEW

Corporate and informational applications have really become the cornerstone of the World Wide Web. So, although many different kinds of digital media offer this kind of information, it seems like a good idea to focus on the Internet and generalize from that point.

Let s start by making one critical distinction. Corporate and informational sites are not the same as point-of-sale or e-commerce sites, in that they are intended to disseminate information, not sell products directly. Even when there is a sales area within an information site, the basic design of the site remains fundamentally different from that of sales sites.

The structure of an interactive sales situation can be thought of as an inverted pyramid in which all interactions funnel the viewer to a single action a purchase. By contrast, the interactive information dissemination structure can be considered as a series of opening doorways that lead to more doorways. In such a structure, viewers options expand and movement through the material becomes more and more flexible. Figure 21.1 illustrates the difference between information and point-of-sale structures.

Figure 21.1: Informational and point-of-sale structures.

Even though the structures of informational and point-of-sale programs are exact opposites, the two applications share similar requirements. In both cases, for example, the architecture should not get in the way of the user s ability to find information or complete transactions as quickly and as easily as possible.