One of the most confusing structural components to visitors of any web site is the navigation design. This is especially true of new visitors to a web site. This is a vastly under estimated design feature, the owners of web sites are familiar with their site and often take for granted the ease of use that visitors will have when navigating their web site. The following is a discussion on the pitfalls that web sites owners should be aware of when they are presented with an initial web design for approval.



Probably the most important aspect to remember when addressing web design is the target audience; how computer and/or Internet literate can one assume the visitors to be? Not an ease judgement call by any means. You cannot base this assumption on expected education levels; there are many professional people with a dread of a keyboard, whereas there are many, so called, unskilled people out there who are at home on the keyboard. What has this to do with the navigation techniques employed in a web site? More than most would expect, would be the answer. A visitor to a web site whom is familiar with the Internet and their PC/Apple will in general find their way round any web site, no matter the complexity of the navigation. In contrast, a person unfamiliar with the Internet and their PC/Apple, and there are plenty of them, will be easily confused by the smallest complexity in the navigation. Although it must be said; that today most visitors to a web site will fall somewhere in between. So how do we determine the level of complexity that can be afforded to the navigation of the web site? This also leads to the poignant question of what do we refer to when talking about the complexity of the navigation. These two questions will be addressed separately; firstly the issue of what these navigational complexities consist of followed by the question of addressing the affordability of these complexities.

So what are these complexities that we see in employed navigation techniques? Let's start by stating seven basics involved in navigation;

1.Level of depth.

2.Text.

3.Graphical.

4.Graphical and text combined.

5.Buttons.

6.Drop down menus.

7.Windows style expansion.

The depth of the navigation is the most common cause of confusing when the consistency of the navigation is lost, for example this may be caused by offering differing options within the navigation bar, most sites do retain a return to home page option, but this can be very frustrating to visitor when they have to start their process from the beginning to return to the desired point. This is an issue that is easily remedied when initially design the navigation, by simply employing a secondary set navigation option in parallel with the initial set of navigation options. In general, no navigation should exceed 3 levels in depth. Intranet and specialized web site are more likely to be the culprits in breaking this general rule.

Text based navigation offers the visitors the most descriptive style of navigation. The following page can be explained and described fairly clearly before the visitor decides to enter the page. This is by far the simplest form of presenting the navigational options, a technique that can assure usability to visitors of all computer/Internet literacy.

Graphical presentation of navigation holds a very prominent position in the Internet. As the old adage states ?a picture is worth a thousand words?, a bit of an exaggeration in the context of web site navigation. However, how else would you present a photograph or a picture of a pair of trousers in a catalogue? Within graphical presentation there are hidden complexities, do you allow the visitor to navigate directly from the image or select the image and then navigate, and there are times when either of these techniques is appropriate. If for instance your web site is a catalogue then by all means if is perfectly acceptable to navigate directly from the image. On the other hand if for example it is a technical site where selection of a navigation option may have a impact on a final outcome, it may be better advised to force a selection of a navigation image then proceed option, thus allowing the visitor time to think.

Graphical and text combined obviously offers benefits from both the above. However, the text will be more limited in character count than the normal text due to fitting the image sizes. This option does generally take up more web page space and is thus not as common as either simple text or image in the likes of catalogues.

Button presentation is basically a form of graphical and text combination style of presentation. This is probably the most common form of navigation presentation today. It is aesthetic, but in reality it still lacks the depth of descriptive content afforded by text only and the descriptive nature of a true image.

Drop down menus and windows style expansion can be addressed together as they are very similar in usage to a visitor to a web site. These two options offer the visitor the opportunity to proceed directly to a web page of choice without an intermediate web page. This may sound like an advantage, but this is not always so. When it has been designed in a way that the options appear when the cursor is passed over the initial selection point the visitor can be bombarded with flashing options as they move the cursor around the page. This can be avoided by forcing the visitor to click on the initial option prior to displaying the subset of options. Either way part of the current page is going to be over written by the subset of options. You would be surprised by the amount of visitors that get confused when simply clearing the subset from their display and decide to move on to another next web site.

So how do we decide which technique or set of techniques is best suited to our own web site. As early stated this should be determined by the target audience. When designing for an Intranet site, the visitors can be educated in the use of the web site, similarly for specialised web site, although not specifically trained it can be fairly safe to make some assumptions when designing the site. However, the vast majority of web sites are aimed at the general public and the secret here is to keep things as simple as possible without being condescending. Take for example a web site aimed at increasing a golf membership; you would be looking at a target audience whom have never before visited your site. It has to have an enticing allure while retaining a simplicity that would enable your potentially new members to easily navigate their way around. Initially here a text navigation coupled with a separate graphical navigation on the home page would seem appropriate. The text navigation bar would remain constant throughout while you could allow the graphical navigation to drop 2 levels, thus, affording the presentation of aesthetically pleasing images while supplying a simple return to a desired point in the site.

In conclusion, the determination of web site navigation and presentation style should be determined by your target audience. There are no set rules that govern this, just a little thought and good planning. You should be aware of the dangers of nasty navigation as visitors are quick in switching to other web sites when they are not comfortable. The simple rule to follow is to keep your navigation as simple as possible. Beware of overly elaborate navigation no matter how good it may look.