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.
-- Tim Horgan,
Webmaster - Finding the Way.
Usable Web Menus
When developing a web site, one of the most important things to
consider is the navigation menu, to allow your users to find their way
around it. It needs to be usable, informative, and well implemented,
but this can take time.
Website Navigation
This page deals with how to design a website to optimise the user's
experience and benefits from it. Especially oriented towards the
"Information Architecture", i.e. designing the organization and
navigation systems that help users find information, this topic is a
meld of concepts from traditional architecture, library science, user
interface design, and usability studies.
Navigation 101
by Charlie Morris. No
matter how good a site looks, or how much useful information it
offers, if it doesn't have a sensible navigation scheme, it will
confuse visitors and chase them away. A simple, understandable
navigation scheme can increase your number of page impressions, boost
return visits, and improve your conversion rate. It's a critical
aspect of site design that has a direct effect on the bottom line.
DHTML Pop-Up Menus
Cross-browser pop-up windows were this author's solution to making
site navigation easier. This tutorial in walks you through the project
of building your own DHTML menus.
Drop-down Menu
These can be processed by CGI, JavaScript, etc.
Frames
Enthusiastically adopted by many on their introduction by Netscape,
there has been a backlash against them due to problems such as loss of
screen space and user control.
Top 100
'Most Popular' lists help users to quickly locate your best pages - or
at least they help you to know what your users were looking
for.
Glossary
This is like the Encyclopaedia Britannica's 'micropaedia'. Terms are
defined briefly, with generous cross-references and links to related
pages in this or other sites. Not as popular as I'd expected :(
Search Engine
An essential item for all but the smaller sites.
Table of Contents
Typically a home page, as in our case. Best with two levels, i.e. main
topic ares, and selected highlights within those areas.
Site Maps
A complete expansion of the 'Table of Contents'.
Image maps
(client-side,
server-side)
A very popular navigation aid, these clickable graphics can be used to
help create a site identity and give visual impact.
Unfortunately they also can add considerably to download time.
Drop-down menus
(NS4 only; uses Layers)
Experimental.
Icons
Their meaning might not always be evident. Can you correctly guess
what each of the following might mean ?
These can offer an excellent way to spice up a web page, and provide
navigation at the same time - used in moderation.
Take care to not overdo it, although usually small (in byte size) a
large number of them can significantly increase download time. It's
not necessarily the total byte size that counts - each connection to a
web server adds significantly to the time.
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