by Katherine Nolan
OutFront News Article: December 26, 2001

Some General Considerations About Navigation

• Keep it short
  The main navigation should be kept as short and simple as possible. If you find that you need more than about 10 -12 links in your main navigation you may need to rethink your site organisation. 

• Provide alternatives
  If there is a lot of information at the site a prominent link to a site map where a more descriptive contents page is available should be included in the main navigation. Use of a drop down box or a search function can also provide useful alternative routes to content.

• Divide and rule
  In large sites it is sometimes useful to add a quick means of reaching a few important pages. Thus you will often see something like this at the top of a page: Home | Contact Us | Site Map or a split navigation with a separate navigation bar for the six or seven main pages or sections in the site. Usually this sort of a navigation bar is located at the top of the page.

• Take me home!
  The main site logo should always link to the home page. If a different logo or graphic is used to indicate sections these should link to the main section page. Users expect this and come to rely on it.

• Provide a text version
  Whatever style of navigation you choose include a text version at the bottom of each page. This is not an invariable rule, some site designs may make it superfluous, but users do generally expect it.

Focus on the User

One way to decide what should be linked from the main navigation controls is to think about the various users. Take each user type in turn, think of a piece of information they may want and ask:

• Will it be clear to the user what path they should follow to reach the content they are looking for from the home page?

• How many 'clicks' separate this user from their target content? More than 3 and you should start thinking about ways to make it easier.

• If this user enters the site at a page in the 'wrong' section will it be clear to them how to reach the content they want?

• Have you provided routes to content other than the main navigation, especially for those users who enter in the 'wrong' part of the site?

A Few Words About Frames

It may seem that having navigation in a frame, so that it remains always visible to the user, is a pretty good thing. However there are a considerable number of difficulties with this approach. The most important, from the point of view of navigation, is that users may arrive at your site on the main page with no frame present and thus no navigation at all; as a result they have effectively entered a cul-de-sac. This can be overcome to some degree by including text links at the bottom of the page. 

Many users find frames annoying and the benefits of having an 'always available' navigation bar are questionable. If you use clear navigation aids, consistently located, it is very easy for users to find them quickly. 

Another problem is that it is difficult for users to bookmark a page in frames since the URL in the address bar will always be the same. Other problems relate to users using browsers that are not frames enabled and to certain difficulties encountered by search engines in indexing pages that are in frames.

Flash, Java Applet and JavaScript Navigation

If you use anything other than text links for your navigation you will need to consider what limitations your chosen methods impose. Although it is probably safe to assume that most browsers in current are capable of dealing with JavaScript, are you so sure about Flash? And are you certain that the JavaScript you have chosen is cross browser compatible? 

If you use this sort of navigation is is doubly important that you also provide a text alternative. Apart from doing so for users with older or specially configured browsers, or those who do not have the necessary plug-ins, you will be invisible to search engines if you do not.

Java Applets are generally a poor choice for navigation. They are not uniformly supported and can cause considerable problems for some users, occasionally causing browsers to crash entirely. This is especially true of FrontPage's Hover Buttons which are really best avoided altogether.

The design of the navigation system is probably the most important part of creating a site. Spend time on it, think it through carefully, test it repeatedly and be prepared to continue improving it as your site expands.

<< Part I

Katherine Nolan
OutFront.net
A Microsoft FrontPage Learning Community