Re. Imagemaps onthe web

[Geoff Hart <geoff-h -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>]

 Here's another great (and almost never used) use for image
 maps on the web: to show people where they are within your
 collection of information. Think of this as the "you are
 here" arrow on those store maps you find in large shopping
 malls: here you be, here's how you got there, here's what
 is around you, and here's how you'd travel to go somewhere
 else. You can do this very, very, very simply using
 monochrome line art (e.g., a flowchart, a roadmap with your
 current location circled, a topic hierarchy) that downloads
 faster than the text it would take to describe the same
 context. If you're concise, you can even display this at
 the top of each screen as a standard, repeating design
 element, in which only the user's current position changes.
 For example:

 ------------------------
 | Pictures  |  Text (U)|     U = U are here! Use shading
 ------------------------     or an icon or graphics, plus
 | Questions | E-mail   |     connecting arrows to clarify.
 ------------------------

 Most browsers let you figure out where you are with
 considerable mental effort and lots of potential for error
 by looking through the "history" list to see where you've
 been. Not pleasant. There are a few variants of this...
 I'll be submitting an article to Technical Communication on
 this very topic towards the end of the week, Adobe
 Illustrator permitting. (After all, what good would the
 article be without illustrations? <grin>) Watch this space!

 --Geoff Hart    @8^{)}
 geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca

 Disclaimer: If I didn't commit it in print in one of our
 reports, it don't represent FERIC's opinion.