February 13, 2004
systems
from Sci_Fi.com
A few interesting things happening here. First, the navigation is far more explicit than usual-- they clearly state that news is archived by category (necessary? probably not).
Each subcategory has an icon. The helps the navigation pop a bit more, though most of the icons are unclear and could not stand alone -- film and rumors in particular looks mysterious and munged. But even if they are unnecessary, there is little doubt they provide an anchor, as well as a kind of Key to the icons used on the rest of the page.
In typical web wayfinding, a navigation item is highlighted to show state. on SciFi.com, the site area and the article is marked with one of the icons to indicate topic/location.
Is it effective? Well, I'll admit I've never seen a system like this in the lab. But my gut tells me it takes a bit more conscious decoding than most users will do in a task-state of mind. The sci-if channel may work slightly better with viewers of that channel, since it is (presumably) embedded in their mind. But it seems unlikely a reader of an article on film will do more than hop over the icon as they digest the contents of the article.