Tips On Creating Your Website's Navigation

Navigation should make it easy for users to find what they are looking for.

Are you redesigning your website and want to improve the sites organization and navigation? This article will give you some simple tips on how to set up your navigation.

Avoid These Mistakes

Here area few common mistakes people make, that are easily avoided.

• Using icons or images instead of text.
• Choosing words that are not commonly used by your customers.
• Having different navigation on different pages
• Hidden Navigation
• Not telling users how they got to your page, or where it fits in the navigation.

Using icons or images instead of text:
This is often referred to as Mystery Meat Navigation. Any navigation scheme that does not visually inform your visitors with words where they will go if they click on something qualifies as Mystery Meat. If your site uses images, but shows words when a user mouses over the graphic it is still mystery meat.

The Fix:
Use words to tell people where navigation links will take them.

Choosing words that are not commonly used by your customers:
Sometimes we get so caught up in or own corporate world. This can affect what we assume about our website users. If your site uses terms that are jargon used by your staff, but not the general public they should be replaced with general terms.

Use simpler words where appropriate. I worked for a client who used the term "Career Opportunities" as a navigation tab. The number one internal search term on their site was "Jobs"; over 25% of searches looked for that term. Changing the tab to "Jobs" significantly reduced searches for the word jobs.

The Fix:
Choose common words from your audience in navigation. Avoiding jargon or corporate culture phrases.

Having different navigation on different pages:
Nothing confuses users more than changing navigation. I am not talking about moving the navigation up closer to the top of a page, or altering the color of a link to show that the user is in that section of the site.

Users get confused when the order of links change, or when the text on links varies from page to page. Make sure your navigation is consistent.

The Fix:
Be consistent review your site to make sure all pages have the same navigation.

Hidden Navigation:
People are used to navigation being on the top, left or right side of a website. Do not place it on the bottom of a page, bury it in content.

The Fix:
Make sure your navigation is easy to use and find.

Not telling users how they got to your page, or where it fits in the navigation:
This is referred bread crumbs. Many sites with lots of content do not tell people what section of the site visitors are in. If the visitor likes your what they are reading and want to look at similar content, not telling them where they are makes it hard for them to find related pages.

Why is this important? Remember that people can get to pages deep in your website by searching Google and then clicking on a link.

The Fix:
Include breadcrumbs on your website.

A Pet Peeve - Dates
This is not related to navigation, but is a general issue with page content. Many pages do not indicate when they were created. This is not an issue with product pages - as I assume that they are current. But news / information pages should have a date (at least a year), so I can tell if I am looking at a page created in 2000 or 2010.