Then there's a roundabout and no sign. Do
you turn left? Right? You're lost and have two choices; turn back and find an
alternative road you know well or blindly drive around and hope for the best.
Websites are very similar, no matter what
their ultimate goal is, your site visitors need to intuitively find their way
around. Too often, general website navigation and orientation disappears or
changes on internal pages.
In fact, with websites this point is even
more pertinent as users can just 'evaporate' and leave your site, instead of
being forced to drive around aimlessly!
1. Page headings
Every single page on your website should have a descriptive, unique and concise main
heading. Naturally, the main page heading should match the navigation item or
link it corresponds to.
Headings provide a cue to orient users and
inform them about what they can expect to find on the page. Guidelines for
effective headings include:
· Make sure they're at least two point sizes
larger than regular text
· Use a different colour to make them stand out
further (background or text colour)
· Ensure there's plenty of white space both above
and below the heading
2. Breadcrumb trail
Often regarded as an 'advanced' navigation
technique breadcrumbs have recently proven in usability studies that they're an
accepted (and appreciated) form of navigation. Breadcrumb trails are links
(usually placed directly above the main page heading) that show where users are
in relationship to the homepage. For example:
Home > Subject > Category > This
Page
The benefits of using breadcrumb
trails are that they:
· Show users where they are in the great scheme of
things (particularly important if site visitors enter the site on a page other
than the homepage)
· Help users learn the structure and hierarchy of
the website
· Show users how they arrived at their current
location
· Allow users to jump several steps at once
A breadcrumb trail should reflect the true
hierarchy of the site, not the path site visitors have chosen to arrive at
their destination.
3. Primary navigation
This may be obvious but it's important to
re-iterate: Correct employment of primary navigation can be one of the most
powerful tools to orientate users on your website. These are the golden rules
for navigation:
· Explicitly highlight the selected navigation
item using a different (and ideally stronger) background colour. Only changing
the text colour usually isn't enough.
· Ensure that the navigation labels exactly match
the destination page headings.
4. Secondary navigation
Again, this may be obvious but it's
important to re-iterate: Just as primary navigation leads users to site
sections, secondary navigation defines the path to specific pages. The same
rules as above apply to good practice orientation, in particular the
highlighting of the selected item.
5. Links
Links should clearly communicate where they'll
take site visitors. Link text should be descriptive so that site visitors
shouldn't have to guess where the link will take them.
Important rules for presenting links
include:
· Users are more likely to click on a link if they
can predict its destination so the ubiquitous naming term 'Click here'
should be avoided at all costs!
· Like all good navigation labelling, link text
should match the destination page heading (if relevant)
6. Page structure
Again, consistency is the key to an
effective page structure that will contribute to users orientating themselves
in the site at all times.
When planning a page structure be sure to
do the following:
· Avoid cluttered page designs - Users are generally familiar with a
standard three column layout (navigation to the left, main content area and
right hand column) so they'll try to anticipate where items will appear on
their screen as the page loads
· Maintain key items in the same location - When screen items remain consistent across pages users can learn
their page location and improve task performance.