Site Navigation - Making your site an "Open Book"As discussed in our last development tip, the reason that people come to your site is to look for information. They have an interest or a need, and they have to be able to find the information quickly. If they can't find the information they are looking for, they will go elsewhere. That's how the Internet works. Making it easy for visitors to navigate your website and find the information they are looking for is an important part of having a successful site. Your navigation should be legible, intuitive, consistent and useful. There are many examples on-line of navigational links done in very small text or in dark blue on black backgrounds. If a visitor can't read the text, they probably won't click on it. Legibility is an often overlooked aspect of encouraging people to navigate a site. Visitors should not have to guess where a link will take them. If you use icons to navigate your site, make sure you label them with text to clarify exactly what information is accessed by clicking them. If you use text, avoid jargon that your audience may not understand. Clear navigation allows your visitor to know what information they will find and in which part of your site they will find it. Once people leave your well-designed home page to visit other parts of the site, they should still be able to navigate to the other sections of your site. A visitor should not be forced to return to your home page to get to another section of the site. Your site navigation should allow people to at least access the main sections of your site from every page. This helps especially if your visitors access your site from a page other than your home page. Similarly, your visitors should not have to scroll back to the top of a long page to get back to the navigation links. It doesn't take much effort to put text navigational links at the bottom of a long page. This makes your site more convenient for your visitors, allows them to find information faster and reduces their stress. You will seldom get compliments for having great navigation on your site. But, making your quality information easily accessible by your site visitors, you make your site more useful, more valuable and more likely to be bookmarked and referred to other people. When you pick up a book, you read the contents to find out what page the information you are looking for is on. Your site navigation should provide the same function. With proper navigation, your site will be an "open book" for your visitors. Internet
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