Keep your Users Happy with Clear Navigation

The first step in designing your website is planning its “information architecture”, of which navigation is an important component. Planning your navigation will not only determine what content needs to be written, but the naming convention that you choose will make of break your website.

Users have grown accustomed to the Web and expect to find navigation located in a certain areas and to contain specific words or description. When planning your navigation, it is very important to place yourself in the users place. What information will they be searching for? Choosing simple easy to understand words for your navigation links will ensure that your users find information easily and rapidly.

Consider the following navigation links:

» Id.tag, dream team,
» Our spin,
» Mouse, leisure

And now these ones:

» About us
» Company information
» Services

The first set of navigation links was found on websites to indicate the same information as the second set of links. Choosing cute names might seem refreshing, fun, dynamic or whatever you may want to call it, but users will only be confused when reading these navigation links. The second set of navigation links may seem stuffy and boring, but everyone knows what they mean and what information to expect when to reach that page.

Remember that your website if for the client’s use, not yours. And always keep in mind that your clients’ time is very valuable and all of them are in a hurry.

In order to keep your customers happy and to ensure that they use your website, good, clear easy to understand navigation is essential. When creating your content architecture keep the following features in mind:

Try to keep your navigation structure to less than 8 items. Adding more that 8 items will simply create lists that are too long, look messy and impossible to scan quickly.

Group content in logical chunks to allow users to access the information they require fast. For example, the about us section could contain the following sections:
» media information
» press releases
» history
» management and personnel
» awards

All legal information, such as copyright, privacy statement, etc… should appear at the bottom of the page.

Home should also be the first link on each page and should always be called home. Adding a link to your company logo is also normal practice on the majority of websites.