Better Websites: Navigation

Introduction:

One of the first implications of a properly organized and good website, is to keep your visitors there. A website is definitely always created for a purpose, unless intended for personal use, which is usually a minority case. For instance, a portfolio website will need to be visited and its content regularly viewed. For companies and internet businesses, your website will certainly aim to provide product information, to make sales,etc. However, most individuals undoubtedly tend to prefer visually captivating designs, good graphics, etc. Though this in fact causes no harm, one must also try to put himself/herself into other people’s shoes, so as to anticipate the visitor’s impression and reaction.

1 ) Navigation

As mentioned earlier, a web designer will have to learn how to think in the same way as your visitors think.

Situation A : Website with a good navigation ( 2-3 hyperlinks to target page ), well planned in terms of placement, and design.

Situation B : Website with a poor navigation ( takes a long time for the visitor to reach his/her target page ), hard-to-read navigation fonts and poor placement of the navigation buttons/bar.

In Situation A, the visitor will always want to be able to access his or her target page. For instance, the individual will come across your website, and will be interested in the product sold, but will want to find more information. He/she will find the navigation without any trouble, and will enter the particular product information page.

As for Situation B, a visitor might stumble onto the website, and might also like to find out some more information about the product. Regrettably however, due to bad placement and fanciful font-types, the visitor will take longer to find what he is looking for, or will even fail to find the navigation bar. Even when he/she will do so, links to the product information won’t be found easily, (example : home > about > products > product image > etc…[a few more clicks] > product information ).

Result : In both cases, wouldn’t a website with similar characteristics to the Situation A be more rewarding to you and your visitors?

Article Source: http://www.webdesignarticles.net.

About the Author:
James Reid is contributing editor at http://www.webdesignarticles.net/. This article may be reproduced provided that its complete content, links and author byline are kept intact and unchanged. No additional links permitted. Hyperlinks and/or URLs must remain both human clickable and search engine spiderable.