TOTI - A new trend in home page design

Eric Rumsey <eric-rumsey@uiowa.edu>
Hardin Library for the Health Sciences, University of Iowa

[The version here is adapted from a posting to the web4lib listserv, 9.97. An expanded version is in the December 1997 issue of Internet Trend Watch for Libraries]

TOTI design sites


In the process of redesigning our library web site's home page, we surveyed many other library home pages. We came across a general design template that we like a lot.

This design might be called the "tips of the iceberg" (TOTI) approach, because its purpose is to show the user the "high spots" of the site, that lurk beneath the surface. As is now fairly standard practice in home page design, the TOTI template features 4-8 main headings, represented on the home page by large text links, which go to the separate sections of the site - i.e. Services, Collections, Web Links, etc. In the standard design template, such links are usually followed by a narrative description of what's in the section.

In contrast to this, in the TOTI design each large section heading has under it a few links from the section, with no additional text description. These links may be hot links from the section, likely to draw the user's interest/attention, or they may be chosen because they give the user some indication of what sorts of things are listed in the section (thus serving both as description and as links). The idea behind this design, clearly, is that space on the top of the home page is too valuable to be taken up by mere description - Why not fit in as many links as possible? A nice touch, often used with this design, is to have a link at the bottom of the sub-section links, called something like "more," that links to the main section page, thus reinforcing in the user's mind the idea that the few sub-section links shown are only a small subset of what's available in the section

TOTI design sites

 
Sites suggested by respondents to the original posting ...
 

Hardin Library for the Health Sciences, University of Iowa
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The URL for this page is http://www.arcade.uiowa.edu/hardin-www/design/toti.html
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