A website’s navigation is an essential aspect of its design. An effective navigation allows users to quickly browse through a site’s content. They can easily locate the information they want. People are as impatient with website navigational systems as they are with page load times. If they cannot find the specific page they want immediately, then they will leave the site for another, which has more intuitive navigation.
Creating an effective navigation menu on ecommerce websites is simple, as long as developers are aware of the essential tools. Here are the key aspects of a well-designed website navigation system. There are two overriding principles, with several essential components.
Visible
A website’s navigation should always be visible. It should be easily located and available from almost anywhere on the page. To increase its visibility, many sites make the primary navigation visually attractive, with either images or flash buttons. These help the controls stand out on a page.
Consistent
The navigational system can be arranged in a variety of creative ways, but it should always be consistent. If the controls are on the top of the main page, they should be in the same place on all subpages. If the buttons are blue on one page, they should be blue on all the pages. If the buttons are medium-sized on one page, all the buttons should be equally sized. The navigation system can be unique, but it must be consistent in all aspects, on all pages. This helps users quickly identify the navigational buttons on a page.
Primary Navigation
The primary navigation for a site should be at the top of each page. It should be located above the fold. In consideration of the increasingly detailed screen resolutions and larger monitors being produced, this is generally regarded as the top 500 to 600 pixels on a webpage.
Being the primary navigation, this should be the most prominent navigation. These links often are either images with hyperlinks or flash buttons. Ideally, these are creatively designed and colorful.
As the primary navigation, this is not the secondary navigation. These links should be only to the main pages of a website. They should not link to any subpages, because additional links quickly clutter the screen. For many sites, the primary navigation ought to be limited to a company logo, Home, About, Services / Products, FAQ and Contact.
Footer Navigation
In addition to the primary navigation above the fold, every webpage should have text links at its footer. There are two reasons for this. First, some computers will not have Flash installed or will be unable to load the images. Text links at the bottom of a webpage allows users on these computers to still navigate around the site. Secondly, these links allow people the option of immediately going to another page, without scrolling to the top of the website. Like the primary navigation, these only need to be links to main pages.
Search
Any site that has a blog, forum or feed of some type should have a search feature. This allows users to find posts related to their interest quickly. Old posts will continue to be read if they are accessible through a search function.
For many sites, the search function is the weakest point of their navigational system. Often, search results are unrelated to the user’s interests. It is worth investing in a good search. Major engines, such as Google, have searches that can be placed on websites. After initial setup, a website’s search needs to be maintained by properly tagging pages.
Sitemap
For websites without a search, a sitemap can help users quickly locate the page they are interested in. A well-planned sitemap will be an html or php page that shows the relationship between pages and subpages in an outline format. Usually a link to the sitemap is located with the footer links.
In all of life, being lost is frustrating. Anytime users are lost on a website, they are bound to leave it for a more organized one. Using a prominently displayed and consistent navigation system, which consist of a primary navigation, footer navigation, search and sitemap, will allow users to enjoy the full potential of a website.
