Hi Hanan
It's an interesting idea - simple and elegant, and works well. There are several things to think about I guess:
1. From a "meaning" POV (I almost said "semantic" then..), the page numbers don't relate to anything. People get very hot under the collar about querystrings in URI's ("museum.com?page=34") and I suspect the purists might feel the same. The problem you have is you are obviously striving for simplicity, so having "pressrelease34" is going to kill the problem you're trying to solve...
2. The very same purists would also want you to consider the persistence of your solution. What do you do if pages are deprecated or need to be removed? What happens when you've got 30,000 pages on your website - do you just keep numbering, or "recycle" numbers?
3. I suspect (as per my earlier post to MCG and my experiences with www.stufflinker.com) that the core majority of your users will have problems relating online and offline experiences. This is the biggest barrier, and one which your solution helps, but doesn't overcome
4. In terms of memorability, your offline users would still need to remember your website URL in order for your solution to be useful. i.e - they might remember that the page they want is 15, but this is of no use if they don't remember "www.mada.org.il". In this scenario, users would do what they usually do anyway - go to google and search for "bloomfield science museum" and whatever the content is they're looking for - OR look for adequate linkage from the home / landing page. One thing I guess you could do is make sure that the page number is considered an important part of the SEO - so if I searched for "Bloomfield Science Museum 15" or "Bloomfield Science Museum page 15" then make sure these results come at the top in Google (they don't right now - your "current page number" is small and low down the page..)
Anyway. Enough rambling. It'll be really interesting to see how users react to this...!
Cheers
Mike
Mike Ellis
Professional Services Group
Eduserv
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tel: 01225 470522
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fax: 01225 474301
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-----Original Message-----
From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Hanan Cohen
Sent: 16 December 2008 08:49
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Go to page number
Shalom,
Since this is my first post to this list I will introduce myself.
My name is Hanan Cohen and I am the new Webmaster of the Bloomfield
Science Museum Jerusalem, Israel. http://www.mada.org.il/en/ . I am
"new" in the sense that I have been a short time on this job and also in
the sense that I am new to museums as a professional.
One of the issues I have been thinking about since starting here is how
to connect the physical world to the web. We know there is a problem of
directing people from paper to web and also from speech to web. At the
most, we direct people to a top directory and they somehow manage from
there.
(See the discussion here at MCG titled "Putting web addresses on
interpretation")
The Bloomfield Science Museum strives to be an educational resource for
its visitors - the general public and the formal education system.
Writing long URL's on paper in order to propose content on our site to
our audience is a problem.
Then I had an idea.
Every page on our site has a unique, short ID.
I have created a new box that is displayed on every page.
The box says "go to page number:", has an input line and below that
"current page number: wxyz"
When I want to direct someone to a page, all I have to do is see in what
page number I am at and write or say a short number.
The recipient just has to type a short number and go directly to the
intended page. No need to type a long URL or click through menus.
Now, we at the museum, will have to learn how to use this feature in our
publications, displays and daily use of the website. It's a whole new
way of thinking which we will have to develop. I hope the new feature
will really solve the problem it tackles.
I would be grateful for any feedback on this solution and its
implementation.
Currently, there isn't much English content on the site. To get a better
experience of the page number idea, I suggest visiting the "Exhibitions"
section.
Thanks,
Hanan Cohen - Webmaster
Bloomfield Science Museum Jerusalem
http://www.mada.org.il
(cross posted to mcn-l)
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