Navigation Architecture - VI

Another scenario is navigating a list of items which could be documents, webpages, pictures, products, etc. Conventionally, web designers have used a page-centric approach to managing and accessing lists in which the list of items is presented in one page, and the details of each item are presented in another page that replaces the page that includes the list. So once a user clicks on an item on the list, that page is refreshed and is replaced by a page showing the details of the selected item. If the user needs to see the list again, he/she must click on the back button. In the event that a user is in discovery mode, this paradigm could become quickly quite annoying because the user will have to go back-and-forth between the page that shows the list and the page that shows the details of an item until the desired item is found. By using parent-child windows in an asynchronous manner that does not require refreshing the entire webpage every time an item is selected, navigating through a list of items becomes not just effective but very pleasant.

Parent window that includes a list which could be displayed in different views such as carousel, thumbnails, wheel, wall, and directory or table whose columns could be sized, ordered, and sorted like in a spreadsheet providing desktop features on the web. The parent window itself can be sized, collapsed, expanded within the current webpage, or expanded in a new tab in the browser.

Child window, which is showing the details of the selected item in the list, can include another webpage, a PDF file, a media player, tabs, etc. When a new item is selected from the list, only the child window is refreshed and not the entire webpage. The child window itself can be sized, collapsed, expanded within the current webpage, or expanded in a new tab in the browser.