Basic navigation
The navigation scheme you use in your Web site is critical to its success. Visitors must be able to easily find what they are looking for- otherwise they'll quickly go somewhere else.
The most common navigation schemes are shown below (you'll often find a combination of more than one of these used in the same site):
Left Vertical
- The most common scheme
- Most people look to the left side of the screen first to orient themselves (because we read left to right.)
Horizontal
The two drawbacks of using horizontal navigation are:
- You use up valuable page space "above the fold", forcing the user to scroll sooner.
- Too many main navigation items will require a 2nd row, or smaller buttons.
Right Vertical
- Works well for secondary navigation
- Not usually used for primary navigation because it forces the visitor to look all the way to the right side to determine where they want to go next.
Other navigation tips
- Add redundant links at the bottom of your pages. This provides more than one path thru the site. This will be especially useful at the bottom of long pages. The visitor will not have to scroll to the top to find their next topic.
- Use a back to top link at the bottom of long pages.
- Use a common navigation system on all your pages.
- Make sure you don't have any "dead end" pages. These are pages that have only one way out, the Back button.
- Have a link to your Home page on every page. This can either be a common button, or a clickable logo at the top of the page.
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