Site Navigation
Design your home page to allow customers access to all areas of your website from your home page. Consider using graphics and image maps — a clickable picture (when you place your cursor on it, the cursor turns into the “link select cursor”) — as an attractive means of navigation.
But remember the users who surf the Web using text-only browsers by also inserting text links (a typewritten description not dependent on an image) at the top or bottom of each web page.
As you drill down into the site, continue a uniform navigation scheme, i.e., the customers can go to the same position on any page to perform a specific function.
Don’t forget to institute “targeted” text links (i.e. text that you can click on and be transported to a specific section of the website), especially in pages that are long or divided into topics or resources. By doing so, you allow the customer more easily to find whatever they may be looking for. Targeted links can be an expedient form of navigation, supplementing the scroll bar.
Structure your site’s design to support future growth. But even when designing for future complexity (e.g. the addition of an auction section or adding a shopping cart), always keep the customer’s view in the forefront.
For example, don’t make the mistake of asking your customer to remember a certain product ID or code when it comes to filling out the order form keep it simple.
Avoid orphan pages pages that although there is a link leading to the page, the page offers no link to leave the page.
Such pages give a potential customer a choice that might lead out of your website, because to continue their search they must either hit the back button on their browser, or close the page and go elsewhere.
To avoid this dilemma, always consider all possible navigational paths a visitor might take and then ensure that there is a series of relevant links available on each page providing your potential customer with some very good reasons for him or her to stay in your website.
Design your home page to allow customers access to all areas of your website from your home page. Consider using graphics and image maps — a clickable picture (when you place your cursor on it, the cursor turns into the “link select cursor”) — as an attractive means of navigation.
But remember the users who surf the Web using text-only browsers by also inserting text links (a typewritten description not dependent on an image) at the top or bottom of each web page.
As you drill down into the site, continue a uniform navigation scheme, i.e., the customers can go to the same position on any page to perform a specific function.
Don’t forget to institute “targeted” text links (i.e. text that you can click on and be transported to a specific section of the website), especially in pages that are long or divided into topics or resources. By doing so, you allow the customer more easily to find whatever they may be looking for. Targeted links can be an expedient form of navigation, supplementing the scroll bar.
Structure your site’s design to support future growth. But even when designing for future complexity (e.g. the addition of an auction section or adding a shopping cart), always keep the customer’s view in the forefront.
For example, don’t make the mistake of asking your customer to remember a certain product ID or code when it comes to filling out the order form keep it simple.
Avoid orphan pages pages that although there is a link leading to the page, the page offers no link to leave the page.
Such pages give a potential customer a choice that might lead out of your website, because to continue their search they must either hit the back button on their browser, or close the page and go elsewhere.
To avoid this dilemma, always consider all possible navigational paths a visitor might take and then ensure that there is a series of relevant links available on each page providing your potential customer with some very good reasons for him or her to stay in your website.