Essential Navigation Checklists for Web Design

Planning the Information Architecture

Content Ideas (beyond home, section and product pages)

As you map out the content of your site, consider the following organizational elements, which are common to many sites today.

• About us
  • Awards/Professional affiliations
  • Company information (what we do and brief history)
  • Client lists
  • Customer quotes or testimonials
  • Job postings
• Contact us
  • Contact details
  • FAQs (frequently asked questions)
  • Feedback form
  • Maps of and directions to office locations
  • Resellers / distributors
• Content
  • Advice
  • Competition
  • Events
  • News
  • Weather
• Legally required / recommended
  • Copyright statement (e.g. © RAC plc 1999 – 2003. All rights reserved.)
  • Privacy policy
  • Terms and conditions
• Member / user login
  • Personalised member area
• Press centre
  • About us (link to)
  • Contact details for PR dep't
  • Management/Key personnel
  • Press releases
• Product
  • Catalogue
    • Description of individual product
    • Large image of each product
    • Shopping basket / online sales
    • Software downloads
    • Video of product in use
  • Customer survey
  • FAQs (frequently asked questions)
  • Sample / brochure request form
• Search
• Site map (if a large site)
• Useful links (related links to external sites)

Only include content that is likely to be sought out/attractive, valued and read by the audience. Don’t include content for the sake of having a larger site or simply because you can – you will be creating a massive maintenance overhead. Remember users are mostly time poor and have a specific goal in mind. In most cases only job applicants & the competition will pore over your site. If you are working on a company website, don’t get carried away with what you can do or what would be cool, but constantly do a cost-benefit analysis in your head and focus on delivering value to your employer

Choice of Words/Phrases

Bear in mind that titles seen as content at the top of pages should correspond to: the title meta tag of that page; the URL for the specific page to an extent; and the wording of the link (or navigational button) that was clicked. This all goes towards assuring the user they are where they wanted to be and helps them get there again

Do not simply replicate a company’s internal structure in your site map – just because it is recognised and useful internally, does not guarantee your users will know how or where to start

Do not use company jargon and be careful of product names that are vague unless they are household names thanks to a massive advertising spend. I had to talk one company out of calling their 'Personal Vehicle Leasing' product 'Just Drive'. Web usability should be a key consideration during product naming

Think about what you want the target audience to be able to do or what it wants to do, and what words they would be looking for to carry out that task

Choose words that are meaningful to your audience – looking at what web users in general type into search engines is a good place to start (in the UK see http://www.uk.overture.com/d/UKm/adcenter/tools/index.jhtml). If you want your site to be found via search engines this is an essential piece of research to do

Structure

Try to make your main site navigation positioning, design and ordering consistent throughout. Your home page is often the lesson users take away with them on how your site is structured – if you change it after the home page I have observed users become blind to new or different navigation further in

Do not have a set of navigational links that is any larger than 8 items – users are put off when overwhelmed with choice. Divide your navigation into chunks – a typical way to do this is by using design to separate general utilities like contact us, site help, site map, etc. from key content areas

Group content/product pages into logical sections to avoid having a long list

Try not to place key navigation (content and utilities) that appears on all pages in different areas of the page e.g. left, top right and bottom – the more you do this the more invisible it can become to the user

Avoid placing important navigation at the top. While scanning pages, which is the way the huge majority of web users use the Internet, they blank out anything they don’t recognise, know they don't want or that looks like advertising - which they have come to expect in the top part of the page

Place legals (copyright notice, privacy policy, terms and conditions) at the bottom of all web pages where they are typically found, but you should also draw them to users’ attention by including links within content where it is timely for them to be read

Home should be the first link. Any site/company logo and image in the top left corner should also be a link to home to follow web convention

Help users find what they want within a list of links. Items should be listed alphabetically unless there is a natural order that 90% of users would grasp with ease when looking for a specific item

If the subject matter lends itself to such manipulation, place what you want users to notice and remember for a long period at the top. Place links you want users to remember for a short time at the bottom of the navigational set and remember that unless middle items have some special significance to the user they won't be remembered at all

Helpful Tips

Don't make the mistake of deciding on the top level navigation before you have created a site map for the whole site

Do not focus on the number of clicks rather than usability. It is more important that users feel in control and understand what to click on, than to ensure all info is 3 clicks away. Don't bury it too deep either but definitely don't create a contrived unfathomable navigation to meet some dumb web rule

Treat text links repeating primary navigation at the end of each page as an optional extra. Text links to content and utilities are often found at the bottom of pages to help users navigate from the bottom of long pages. If the primary navigation device uses scripts that are incompatible with the browser or assistive technology (that disabled users may employ) there remains a way to navigate around the site, but affected users will probably give up before getting to the end of the page. Although a convention, in my user testing experience most users go back to the navigation at the top

Treat visited links as a nice feature to have for those who understand web design or are power users. I have never observed a typical user, i.e. one without web design knowledge, realise that links have changed their appearance because those pages have been visited

Include a search and site map if your site has many pages. Note that some users have learned searching gets them to the info they seek quicker than browsing and look for a search box, rather than at navigation, as soon as they come to a new website

Finally remember users must be able to navigate without using a mouse (keyboard only operation) for your site to be accessible. You should be aware you'll need to plan for an accessible version of your site if navigation is not usable when scripts, applets, or other programmatic objects are turned off or not supported