Navigation

The navigation on World of Warcrafts site has many different appeals to many different types of users. It makes a simple appeal to logos, as the things that should easy to find are, in fact, easy to find. The left hand navigation menus are small enough to not be distracting, but large enough so that they are easy to find. These navigation menus can be collapsed or expanded at will, and the preference is saved to the users cookies. This means that after a first visit, the user can choose to see only links they find relevant.

In the top of the center column, right in the users main field of view, a dynamic object shows animated content to viewers of the site. Each of these animations or mini-movies links to what is being advertised. These animations can create both ethos and pathos for Blizzard, as they used vivid imagery players are already used to seeing to drum up more desire to follow these links. For example, they are currently running a portion of this for Diablo III, using holy and demonic images players of the previous two installments will easily recognize.

A portion of the left hand navigation menu

A navigation menu in the right column
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Posted by: Rob Larsen
July 20th, 2008