Importance of Website Navigation in Website Design

What is website navigation?

To know about website navigation, first we should have a clear idea about navigation. It is the method of moving from one place to another. Website navigation is the process that helps the visitors to move from one web page to another. It is an integral part of website design. Navigation for a website is important to increase user’s experience and interest on that particular site.

Points to remember

Navigation, also known as a button bar, is the doorway to enter the different sections of site. It should be easy to find. The most common location of navigation bar is the top of the page. Site navigation should come in the same position on every page; it should be consistent. There should be clear section names as marked in the navigation. Don’t try to make too many navigation buttons and navigation bars. It may confuse the visitors.

A clean layout along with a neat navigation is essential for web design. Some important tips are given below

• Try to make proper navigation planning before designing
• The navigation system must be uniform
• For greater number of links, you can use drop-down menus or flyouts
• Try to maintain a site map to help visitors find what they are searching for
• The navigation should be flexible enough so as to provide space for any amount of additional links
• Try to keep the main links together so that the visitors can see them at a glance
• Try to make efficient use of navigation space

Different types of navigation

Good navigation is the key to good web design – in business as well as in informational sites. There are three main types of navigation and they include-

• Hierarchical
• Local
• Global

Techniques of navigation

Some of the most popular methods of navigations are

• Bread-crumb trail
• Embedded links
• Left/ top/ pop-up nav bar
• Mix and match navigation
• Site map
• Tab navigation

Optimized web navigation

Search engines prefer those sites, which are easy for them to navigate and retrieve information. There are several types of search-engine friendly navigation structures and some of them include Simple text-based navigation, JavaScript based navigation, Flash navigation, Image based navigation, Sliding/ DHTML menus and so on.

The website navigation properly guides the user. A well-organized navigation bar will provide the user with the instant knowledge of the website. Efficient and effective website navigation encourages the user to explore the site.