Website Navigation: Heart of Web Design

The attention span of an average web user is limited to a few seconds and he loses interest if the desired results are not achieved within those seconds. Therefore, a website designer should ensure that while working on a web design, good navigation is given utmost importance.

Website navigation is the key factor that determines the success of a site. When designing the web navigation elements, the purpose of the site and its target audience have to be determined. The key of an accessible web design is a clean and comprehensible navigation that is user-centric.

The important elements of a strong website navigation are-

1) Consistency- While navigation is the key to a successful website design, consistency is the key to a successful navigation plan. The type, style, position and the colours of the navigation bars should have some uniformity to improve the user experience. If the navigation changes on every web page or changes colours, the visitor would get confused and would prefer to leave the site to find a simpler website that provides the required information.

2) Easy to find- If you try to overdo with your navigation style and make it way too complex, the visitors would lose interest in your site because they would be confused about it. So without testing the patience of your visitors, you must ensure that your website design has a navigation that is very easy to find and allows the visitors to browse through the site comfortably.

3) Keep it simple- No matter how much you experiment with your web design, the navigation should remain simple and conventional. Using unique names for different sections is not a great idea, because visitors are not used to such names and would not find those sections worth seeing, even if they contain information that they came looking for on the site. Therefore, simplicity should be maintained throughout the navigation of a website design and obvious names and titles should be given to different sections and web pages on the site.

4) Keep it minimal- When you have too many navigation buttons on the website, confusion is bound to occur. You give too many options to the visitors through these buttons and they fail to reach to the actual page where they wanted to reach at the first place. Moreover, by giving too many options, you also prevent the visitors from taking a positive action on the site.

5) Don’t forget the Back button- Never leave the visitors on their own when they are on your website. Always tell them where they are and have a Back button so that they can return to the point where they started from.

When done properly, website navigation can strongly benefit the website and the business that it represents. What makes navigation important for the success of a website is discussed below:

i. Improved accessibility
ii. Browser compatibility
iii. Great user experience
iv. Better conversion
v. Improved financial results

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