Creating good web site navigation is the most important task a web designer has to accomplish in the web design process. Web site navigation is the pathway people take to navigate through sites. It must be well constructed, easy to use and intuitive. Poor navigation does not help users and often, your site can prove to be less accessible than others.
Good navigation is fundamental to good web design - in both business and informational sites - users should be able to find information easily. If the navigation is not easy to use or intuitive users will quickly go elsewhere in search of information. We often see ourselves in front of web sites without knowing what to do next. The navigation is so well hidden or disguised that the some users simply dont know how to use it. Navigation is the single most important element in creating accessible and usable web sites.
Checklist and key points to consider when designing navigation
Web site navigation checklist
- Titles of navigation links should be short, descriptive and intuitive. Users should easily understand what every link leads to.
- The primary navigation should not have more than 6-7 links. Keep only the most important links in the primary navigation and leave the rest for the secondary navigation.
- Make the primary navigation stand out by using graphics or different links style.
- If using graphics or javascript links, a text alternative should be available.
- On every page there should be a reasonable number of links. Pages with 20-30 links are harder to use than pages with 10 links. Visitors don't have the time to click on all of them to see if they are interested in the information secluded behind them. The best approach is group similar links in categories and let people discover them click upon click.
- Users should be able to tell at any time their whereabouts are in a web site. A Bread Crumb type of menu such as the one on this page lets them know that they are in a subsection of the Accessible web design section.
- Colour links don't necessarily have to be standard but they should be able to tell if a link has been clicked before or not.
Testing web site navigation
In order to test web site navigation have inexperienced users navigate through the web site. If they find it intuitive to use then so will more experienced users. It means that the web site is a navigational success.
http://www.mardiros.net/good-navigation.html
