Proposals/Done/Navigation Revamp

As part of the usability work that is happening, a good look at the main navigation is worth considering. The following is an initial proposal that was formulated with some things in mind:

• Navigation items should be grouped and ordered based on logical tasks, such as:
  • filling in personal info
  • collecting stuff
  • organizing/displaying stuff
  • networking with others
  • settings and other "utilities" that are rarely used
• Drop down menus would be good - but we may not need them immediately. This proposal keeps the 3-level menu system as is, and just rearranges things

Proposed Structure

Levels indentation correspond to the three levels of navigation we currently have (main nav, sub nav, in page tabs).

• Home
• Profile (No more in page tabs)
  • About Me (encorporate existing 'General' tab into this, and the 'Personal Info' section from Resume)
  • Contact Information
  • Messaging (rename to Social Networking and add fields for Flickr Username, etc)
  • Resume (remove the Contact Information and Personal Info sections, as they add nothing new - do the rest as in page tabs)
    • Cover Letter
    • Interests
    • Employment & Education
    • Acheivements (under this go certs/accreds/awards, books/pubs, prof memberships)
    • Goals & Skills (can be factored back out to sub nav items if they don't make sense as part of resume)
• My Portfolio
  • My Views
  • My Files
  • My Blog
• Network
  • Groups (here, instead of in page tabs as a third level of navigation, we could have a 2-level javascripty filter, indicated here by indentation levels)
    • All Groups (simple, non-filterable search box provided here)
    • My Groups (when this filter is chosen, the second filter level appears - by default nothing in the second level is selected and the results are not filtered further)
      • Groups I own
      • Groups I'm In
    • Pending Memberships
  • Friends
    • Find Friends
    • My Friends
    • Pending Friends
• Inbox
• Settings
  • My Account
  • Profile Icons
  • Notifications
  • Institution Membership
  • Portfolio Export