Areva : Relating richness

A novel navigation feature has a special effectiveness.

The Site

Areva, a France-based nuclear energy group, presents related content in a novel and eye-catching navigation feature.

Areva uses the header banner across its site to house a content carousel. This displays five captioned thumbnail images and a button for Media Center. The images are loosely fenced at either end by double chevrons pointing respectively left and right; these allow the carousel to be forwarded or reversed one item at a time. Each thumbnail has an embedded icon indicating the content format (for example, solid right-pointing arrowhead for video, page with peeled back corner for documents).

The content on display is tailored to the current page and clearly changes as the user moves around, even at secondary and tertiary levels. Clicking on a thumbnail causes the header banner to expand, pushing the main page area down the screen. The carousel remains visible and the same size while the area created above it has a graphic display of options; for example, an expandable summary with download and associated document links, a video viewer or view/download links. Video and HTML pages are shown within the expanded header banner, which is greyed-out for the display. The banner can be collapsed at any time using a ‘Close’ button.

The Takeaway

Areva’s content carousel is a fascinating amalgamation of related links and rich media that produces a much more powerful feature than its respective parts might suggest likely. Both are, to varying degrees, established elements in the website toolkit but are given a whole new dynamic here that in turn energises the entire site.

Key to it being more than just a signature flourish, or distinctive special effect, is the hard work that has clearly gone into making it a robust, relevant and user-friendly feature. For example, the highlighted links really are related closely to each page, formats and navigation controls are clearly signalled, all the action takes place on the current page so that the ‘core’ content is easily retrievable. The value will still be there long after the novelty has worn off.

First published on 18 February, 2010