It cannot be stressed how important searching and navigation are to the outcome of the site for the user. Therefore these features of 'The Fifties' Web' and the NDN were described under Purpose and Intended Audience, since the purpose of the site related to the way that movement was or should be directed around the site. Navigation reflects the structure of the site and the way that movement around the site is directed by the author. Electronic searching, as Featherstone describes, has the ability to act as a catalogue and classification system. Certainly, searching has the potential to transcend the classification limitations provided by author, particularly if full-text searching is available for documents.
Therefore it is significant that neither of these archive sites prioritise the search function within their site. Instead, the more obvious navigational path for users to rely on is the categories and directional browsing provided by the author. Aside from a desire to provide this direction, this style of navigation may have been designed in the belief that users want this ability to browse. This rings true for 'The Fifties Web' as a recreational site, but would contradict the research purpose of the NDN archives. On the other hand, maybe this design reflects a universal preference to see or conceptualise material in the general rather than the detail?
Mike Featherstone, "Archiving Cultures", British Journal of Sociology (Jan./March 2000), 172.