 Navigation
People don’t like to feel lost, make sure they know where
they are on every section of your site – they shouldn’t
have to think about it.
- show your logo in the same place on each page and
make it a link to your home page
- give each page a meaningful title - this also helps users
find it in their bookmark list
- show the site’s structure and highlight the current page
-
don’t use JavaScript or Flash navigation systems – visitors
will be disorientated if they don’t have it installed
Help people find what they need quickly and easily – if they
can’t, they’ll leave.
-
don’t be radical, use conventions that people are familiar
with
- provide a search box at the top of each page and label it ‘search’
-
keep links blue and underlined (controversial especially in navigation
systems)
- don’t underline text that can’t be clicked
-
don’t create orphan pages – offer people a further
place to visit
- ensure links work and the information they point to is updated
-
don’t be ambiguous with section titles, make it obvious
where to look for an item
It’s good to know where you’ve been on a site – it’s
annoying when you visit the same page 3 times because you didn’t
know you’d already seen it.
- keep visited links purple and underlined – again
controversial
- breadcrumbs can be useful for back-tracking to a particular section
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