Good Website Navigation
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Good Website Navigation

By: Michael Henderson

Website Navigation is defined as the science and skill applied to a web site that helps visitors move from one page to another. A good website navigation system is imperative for a successful and accessible website design. An ideal web navigation pathway should be well structured, easy to use and intuitive.
A poor navigation pathway may confuse the readers and make them go elsewhere for the information that they seek.
Navigation is an indispensable tool for creating usable and accessible websites. It should not be hidden or disguised in any form, but be very clear so that users are easily able to use it without any efforts.

Key Points!
Thanks to search engines, bookmarks and links posted on other websites, people can directly enter any of the pages of the website apart from the homepage. Thus, there should be a good navigation pathway to leads them from all entry points. Users must be able to navigate through the site with ease. From any given page of the website they should be able to reach the home page and other important portions of the site.

A good navigation pathway should cater to what people expect from the site. All the links, categories should be classified into primary and secondary navigation bars to help them browse more easily.

The ‘Minimal Clicks’ concept should be kept in mind while designing the website. Visitors should be able to access the page of their choice with the least possible navigation. Their instincts should be reciprocated with instant reactions by the website.

User-Friendly Navigation
The website designers should keep in mind the preferences of the users while developing the navigation pathway. Their familiarity with the design will not be reason enough for all the users to be at ease with that.
A particular web page should have links to the home page as well as other important pages. In addition there should be a site map that helps viewers figure out where exactly they are and what path they should take to navigate onto some other page.

Primary Website Navigation
The most popular form of navigation is the Left Website Navigation. Designers must ensure that the most important navigation links are visible in full at the first page of the web site at 800X600 resolutions and that it should not fold below the screen. The width should be restricted to less than 300px so that there is enough space for the text body. The left navigation pathway is in sync with user behavior as they start reading from left to right.

Another important type of navigation is the Top Navigation where the navigation bar is located at the top of the page, thus leaving more space below for the content and other information. But it must be ensured that there are no graphics there to distract viewers

English language websites do well with the a navigation bar located towards the left side as readers tend to read from the left to right and thus notice the menu bar first!

Secondary Navigation
These include links such as Contact Us, About Us, Privacy Policy, Terms of Use, Site Map, Links etc.
These links should appear smaller so they look different from the primary ones. The location can be below the primary navigation toolbar. In case of top navigation bar, the secondary links can be placed on the right side of the page.

Text Menus
The text menus can be used as the additional navigation method. Text menus are often placed at the bottom of the page. This is because if the text is long and the by the end of it, the main menu is out of sight, these text menus at the page footer acts as a solid navigation alternative to browse back.

Internal Linking
Internal linking between the pages not only helps users find related information quickly but also helps search engine spiders to access every single page of the website. A small set of links to related pages and resources can be placed below the text to interlink pages of similar interest.

Avoiding Intricate Navigation Tools
Web designers should try and avoid using overly modern and funky navigation just for the sake of visual bliss. Users are more interested in retrieving information than checking out the intricacies of the navigation. So the navigation bar should prioritize simplicity and user-friendliness.

Checklist!
•
Web designers should keep the titles of the navigation bar short and descriptive to facilitate easy understanding among the users.

• Primary navigation bar should consist of not more than 6-7 important links. All the other links should be placed under the secondary navigation.

• The primary navigation bar should stand out on the web page.

• A text alternative should be made available in case graphics or JavaScript links are used. This is because if users have their graphics turned off, they should still have access to that specific information.

• Every page should have on it a reasonable number of links. Similar links should be grouped together to make it easier for the visitor to browse through the desired content.

• At any particular time, visitors should be able to figure out their whereabouts. A site map or a crumbs menu should be featured on the page to let them keep track of their pathway.

• A link that has already been clicked should appear in a different color so that the visitor knows about the status.

Testing
The best way to test your newly designed website navigation tool is by having inexperienced users navigate through the web site. If they are able to successfully browse through the site, then the design can be termed as a navigational success!

Article Source: http://articlenexus.com

Michael Henderson, a professional web designer and SEO expert in India, has several international projects to his credit. His expertise in web technologies has led WWW to appoint him as a consultant for their offshore clients. He also advised web designers to design web pages that conform to the W3C standards.

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