The Importance of Website Navigation
Imagine an award-winning website. What do you picture? Graphic design? Cutting edge templates? Pages that flow seamlessly from one to the next?
What about usability? It’s not as prominent, is it? But if you were on that award-winning website, you would expect everything to be easy to find, right?
Navigation is the real hero of web design. Good navigation has to work with all sections, give great directions, and blend in smoothly with the rest of the website. There are many types of navigation- top navigation, side navigation, double navigation (good for sites with multiple sub-sites), and drop-down menus- but the part that always remains the same is that if you want your user experience to be the best it can be, your navigation must be well thought out and organized.
What can good navigation do for me?
Besides structure and basic functions, navigation can also steer consumers in certain directions. For example, if the goal of the website is to promote a new product, that message should be placed prominently in search and the audience should be directed to the new location.
Effective navigation should keep your audience on your page and never leave them stranded (no orphan pages, please!). Your navigation should also be aligned with the web design so they both flow and neither detracts from the other.
Though not glamorous, something we champion is useful, clean, and simple navigation… so we encourage you to look at your analytics, your site data, and your intentions… is your navigation really doing all that you hoped?
In summary, these are some of the top features you need to bear in mind when thinking about your navigation:
- Easy Navigation: A menu bar provides an easy way for users to quickly find the information they need. It serves as a hub for all of the different pages on the website, making it simple to go from one page to another.
- Brand Recognition: A menu bar can be used to showcase a company’s logo and branding, helping visitors recognize the site and build a sense of trust.
- Improved Usability: A menu bar helps to make a website more user-friendly. By clearly displaying all the different sections of the website, it makes it easier for visitors to quickly find what they’re looking for.
- Increased Engagement: A menu bar can help to keep visitors engaged on a website by providing them with a direct path to the content they’re interested in.
- More Accessible Content: By providing a menu bar, a website can make its content more accessible to visitors with disabilities. This is because the menu bar can be used to provide keyboard navigation, which can be used by visitors with vision impairments.
