The Basics of Website Navigation
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Spotlight on navigation design
Website Navigation design is more than a laundry list of links. To help you build the best navigation scheme for your website, we've collected the best resources on the Web. We'll point you to the latest on information architecture and interface design, introduce you to the key personalities in navigation design, provide help with key navigation issues in JavaScript and style sheets, and even lead you through the Web's top navigation portals.
Back to Basics -by Gerry McGovern
As 2000 came to a close, most of us were still nursing reality bites. But one thing that has consistently struck me is how amidst all the changes so little has actually changed.
More Fundamentals for a Quality Search -by Gerry McGovern
I wrote about why a quality search function is so important to your web site. This week I'd like to examine standards for advanced search functionality and the presentation of search results.
Laying out Web Content -by Gerry McGovern
If you were to place the world's 100 biggest-selling English-language newspapers in a row, you would find no more than two or three different layout styles for the front page. There are only so many ways to properly lay out content, whether in a newspaper or on the web, but there are two, sometimes conflicting, objectives to follow.
Navigating a Web Site -by Gerry McGovern
One of the most difficult problems in web site design is navigation. When you say "web site design," a lot of people immediately think of graphics, of visual design. The core design challenges for a web site revolve around information, not visuals.
Usability with Small Menus
We see more mini menus on the web now than ever before. They look cool, but lets think about the user of your site more...
Back to the basics of site searching
One of Web site management's defining characteristics right now is its ability to avoid the unmissable in pursuit of the unaffordable. So organisations conduct $200,000 graphic design exercises on sites with Fantasyland business plans, or spend $1 million to "personalise" shallow and uninformative content.
Making URLs Predictable - By Kristoffer Bohmann
URLs that are easy to predict make it easier for users to type in a URL and link to pages.
Why Primary Navigation Must Die - By Kristoffer Bohmann
Users mainly ignore primary navigation bars because the information featured is less relevant to their tasks.
Effective Search Results - By Kristoffer Bohmann
Search result pages must make information easy to find and present results in a format that is easy to use.
Menus & Bullets
Increase the usability and design of your HTML menus using these tips...
Breadcrumbs in Javascript
seven issues in hypertext, revisited - Frank Halasz
Keynote Address, Hypertext '91 Conference San Antonio, Texas December 18, 1991
Navigation
The basis of web site usability. Designing navigation elements, menus and sitemaps.
cnet's articles on site navigation
Drop-Down Menus: Use Sparingly (Alertbox from Useit.com)
Drop-down menus are often more trouble than they are worth and can be confusing because Web designers use them for several different purposes. Also, scrolling menus reduce usability when they prevent users from seeing all their options in a single glance
Navigation and Interface Design
Tips and information on designing effective and user-friendly Web site navigation
Designing Site Navigation
This article addresses the main issues designers confront when building effective navigation tools.
Web Navigation: Designing the User Experience
This book takes the first in-depth look at designing Web site navigation through design strategies to help you uncover solutions that work for your site and audience. It focuses on designing by purpose, with chapters on entertainment, shopping, identity, learning, information, and community sites. Comes with a CD-ROM containing software demos and a "netography" of related Web resources.
Yale Web Style Guide
covers graphic and information design, page layout, site organization, navigation, and multimedia content.
Why Yahoo is Good - But May Get Worse (Alertbox Nov. 1998)
Based on hypertext with links, links, and more links everywhere you turn. Integration between search and navigation: when you search, the hits are shown relative to their location in the topic hierarchy.
Interface Standards and Design Creativity (Alertbox Aug. 1999)
Do Interface Standards Stifle Design Creativity? No design standard can ever specify a complete user interface. A standard ensures that your users can understand the individual interface elements in your design and that they know where to look
Info Design: Jennifer Fleming on Designing Web Navigation
What does an author, librarian, Web consultant, and navigation expert have to tell you about information design? Lots. Our package on Jennifer Fleming takes you into the heart of her world of navigable Web design. She integrates the teaching of Web designers, usability gurus, psychologists, anthropologists, building architects, and -- let's face it -- the users themselves. The result: lessons to benefit your Web team.
Here's what you'll find:
A Flying Menu Attack Can Wound Your Navigation
Too often, designers use fancy menus - of the pop-up, drop-down, or cascading variety - when simple text links or forms would be better navigation tools. (7/25/2000 at Lighthouse on the Web)
Navihedra.com
- demonstration site for the Navihedron, a 3D navigational device for browsing and organizing Web information.
Recommended Books by Web Usability Guru Dr. Jakob Nielsen
Is Navigation Useful?
For almost seven years, my studies have shown the same user behavior: users look straight at the content and ignore the navigation areas.......(Usability Guru Dr. Jakob Nielsen's article on site navigation)
Usable Web
22 links: Research into how users navigate the Web
Web Developer's Virtual Library - Navigation
The problem of Web site navigation is conceptual, technical, spatial, philosophical and logistic. Consequently, solutions tend to call for complex improvisational combinations of art, science and organizational psychology.
Seven Steps To Easier Web Navigation
Even with great content, a hard-to-navigate website won't get used. Here's how to fix that.
By Constance Petersen.
Navigation in Web Applications
Paper by Hal Shubin and Margaret M. Meehan, which describes how Web navigation on the Web is different from Windows and Mac applications. UI guidelines for Web design.
Ensure Your Site is Easy to Surf!
by Mark Joyner CEO, Aesop.Com
All Things Web: Interface Elements
Design fundamentals, tips and techniques for building usable and compatible Web interfaces.
WebMaster--Finding the Way
3 high profile webmasters discuss issues of website navigation with an Intranet focus that applies to any content-rich web site.
Lighthouse on the Web:
Designing for navigation
Web site navigation design hints from the Lighthouse on the Web site.
Designing Site Navigation from Webreference.com
This article addresses the main issues designers confront when building effective navigation tools.
Mystery Meat Navigation
Rollovers for navigation make web pages that suck
For the Love of Links: Tangential Site Design
tutorial on site navigation
Web design
Links to dozens of Web resources, covering navigation and UI design. In Snap.
Anchor Web Index - Navigation
Not nearly as link-rich as Snap, but this short list of articles is tightly focused on Web navigation. In Anchor.
Building a Collaborative Web Project
Have you ever gotten lost? One minute you have a place to go and a reason to get there. The next minute, the buildings around you no longer look familiar. The street signs have strange names.
Effective Navigation Design on the World Wide Web
Design Considerations for Web Site Navigation -
by Edwin Lim and John Paynter Department of Management Science and Information Systems, The University of Auckland.
This paper addresses the major design issues relating to web site navigation on the World Wide Web. Existing research on hypertext applications and menu structure is reviewed to form a basic understanding of navigation concepts.
Twelve Navigation & Usability Rules
These D & D Enterprises / Technoweenies / Internet San Diego web subsite contain a set of twelve navigation and usability rules.
Back to Basics with Site Navigation
by Satadip Dutta.
Site Navigation
By Pete Gullekson
The DevWeb's article on site navigation.
Effective Navigation: A Web Site Essential
By Laurel Nevans-Palmer, WebLaurels Designs.
WWW User Surveys
Since its beginning in 1994, the GVU WWW User Survey has accumulated a unique store of historical and up-to-date information on the growth and trends in Internet usage. It is valued as an independent, objective view of developing Web demographics, culture, user attitudes, and usage patterns. Recently the focus of the Survey has been expanded to include commercial uses of the Web, including advertising, electronic commerce, intranet Web usage, and business-to-business transactions.
HTML tip of the week - site navigation
From Digitalauthors.com
Topic Maps
From infoloom.com
Topic Maps are a tool to organize information in a way that is optimized for navigation. It addresses the problem of infoglut that we are facing. Too much information resolves eventually at no information, unless there are ways to filter and to extract efficiently the kind of information which is really needed.........
Web Site Architecture 101
Have you ever wanted a quick way to determine the architecture or navigation scheme for a site you're working on? Here's how, in three easy steps.........
New navigation and usability ideas.
There is a lot being done to solve common navigation / usability problems. I had a look around the web, here are a few of the more interesting ideas I've found (by pedrito).
Breadcrumbs for All
Several sites now have a breadcrumb trail as a navigation aid. The appeal is obvious: help the user work out where they are in a hierarchical site. It's pretty good usability, which is probably why Jakob Nielsen has one on his site. Here's how to add one to your own (Unix/Apache/Perl-hosted) site.
Designing More Usable Documents
cooperative efforts linked toward creating more usable documents for all.
Designing information-abundant web sites: issues and recommendations
The abundance of information on the World Wide Web has thrilled some, but frightened others. Improved website design may increase users' successful experiences and positive attitudes.This review of design issues identifies genres of websites, goals of designers, communities of users, and a spectrum of tasks. Then an Objects/Actions Interface Model is offered as a way to think about designing and evaluating websites. Finally, search and navigation improvements are described to bring consistency, comprehensibility, and user control.
Mapping Web Sites
Today's web site is a combination of a publication, a software application, and navigation system. Building such a complex product requires both verbal and visual analysis. Planning diagrams are an essential tool in the analysis process, helping a team understand the content and relationships that the design of a web site must represent.
Even with the best design, a web site is largely invisible and often difficult to grasp. As the web has grown as a publishing media, designers have struggled to find the equivalent of an index or table of contents for a web site. A web site is not a book, a magazine, a virtual city or a file system. We will explore the kinds of diagram that can visually represent a web site.
JavaScript and Web Site Usability
An Interview with JavaScript Guru, Mr. Danny Goodman.
