How to Develop Clear Navigation

Web Designers at Brown University offer these guidelines:

• Provide context and orientation information to help users understand complex pages or elements.
• Provide clear and consistent navigation mechanisms -- orientation information, navigation bars, a site map, etc. -- to increase the likelihood that a person will find what they are looking for at a site.

Patrick Horton and Sarah Lynch write in the Yale Style Manual, "Clear, consistent icons, graphic identity schemes, and graphic or text-based overview and summary screen can give the user confidence that they can find what they are looking for without wasting time. Users should always be able to easily return to your home page, and to other major navigation points in your local site (http://www.med.yale.edu/caim/manual/)."

The Clear Design web development company says that the navigational scheme needs to reinforce and indicate to the user where they are currently located on the site.  A simple use of color and graphics within a navigation bar on the Apple web site is a good example of this.

Do you know where you are on this site?

Questions? Comments?  Do I practice what I preach? Contact me at afensie@attbi.com.
Organizing Your Web: A Guide to Creating Intuitive Navigation Structure was created by Anne Fensie for IT522 at Bridgewater State College.
Copyright 2002
Last updated October 03, 2006