The first thing I noticed was a lack of a primary navigation (that and that Oprah’s name appears on the page 100 times). Other than serving as a navigational tool, having a primary navigation area helps users gain a sense of comfort with a site. Without it, the site felt overwhelming to me, like I didn’t know where to go or where I was going to end up on the site. All sites should have orienting tools- tools which help users ground themselves in the nebulous virtual space.

The Oprah.com site actually does have a primary navigation, but it’s hidden at the top-left corner of the screen under a little plus sign. Very unconventional, and likely to be missed by the site’s users.

When the primary navigation is expanded, it’s more of like a sitemap rather than navigation. There are too many options for users to sort through, although the second column looks like a good candidate for the site’s primary navigation. Too few choices and users think you don’t have what they want. Too many choices and users do some of the following:

1. Have “analysis paralysis” – they have too many options so they end up not making one.
2. Their decision quality suffers – they “satisfice” and make the simplest choice, not necessarily the best.

Personally, I think that the primary navigation Oprah.com is using is an easy way out for the IA and designers who couldn’t decide on what to use as their primary navigation links. It’s better to have higher level categories for the primary navigation than to hide it altogether because then, you are setting expectations correctly.

A solution for this? Run a card-sorting exercise and some user interviews to figure out what your users are looking for specifically, and what’s more important to them. That will help determine what the primary navigation on the site should be.

Out of curiosity, I took a look at some of the other day time talk show hosts’ websites, like Rachael Ray, Martha Stewart, Tyra, and Ellen. All the other sites look like they’ve done a good job at identifying what their audience is looking for and provided those categories as the primary navigation. If Martha Stewart and Rachael Ray can create a primary navigation, why can’t Oprah?

Update

Looks like the all-seeing and all-knowing powers of Oprah somehow telepathically read my mind. As I wrote this blog post, it looks like the Oprah site has been completely redesigned, addressing this primary navigation issue. The site looks a lot better, but there are still some pretty basic usability issues (non-clickable headings to start), but I’ll save those things for another day… unless she beats me to it again!

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