Site Navigation And Archtectrure | Web Development

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When you design a website a user must be able to access each and every word of information on your website without much effort. This is the aim when designing the site navigation.

To travel successfully through a site a user must:


Know where they are
Have confidence
Be assured they can easily get back to where they have been

Websites consist of a number of pages connected by multiple hyperlinks. These hyperlinks should be defined and placed where they are easily visible. Mouse over effect not only add flavor to the links but also make sure that the user doesn’t miss them.

Such architecture is referred to as a network, which contains pathways that allow a page to be visited repeatedly from many different locations.

For most design situations, structuring begins with sorting out the distinct categories of information to be included in the site.

When users first arrive on a site they will have no clue as to its size, content or organisation.

Users must know what regions of the site exist and a site map can help provide this.

Successful website design navigation should be possible on the basis of information provided on each page. If a page contains a number of clicks – able regions and several sets of buttons, the user is likely to get confused.

One way to overcome this is to design is such a way, to that the structure is visible to the user and she can easily navigate through the site in a few steps.

The Opening Page:

The opening page can set the tone of the whole publication and introduce users to the site structure and methods of navigation. It’s like the cover of a book, which then draws the user into the site.

The right choice of a site-opening page can depend upon:


The nature of the site’s information.
The frequency with which the visitors revisit the site.

The frequency with which the site’s information changes.

Sites like BBC, Adobe and Macromedia are large web designs visited by tens of thousands of people daily and servicing many repeat customers. They contain a lot of pages, covers a wide range of topics and are update frequently.

Tips for the opening page:

Orient first time users to the site structure by introducing the navigation bar. Alert frequent users to recent additions.

Some sites focus on introducing a firm’s range of professional services. Here the focus is on establishing new clients and not providing a random access service. Such sites have a narrative structure as visitors to the site are looking for an overview of the firm, its history and track record.

The opening screens of such sites must load quickly and allow repeat visitors to skip some of the overview information.

Other sites offer the latest information, and therefore need to be updated frequently.

About the Author

Keith McGregor is a partner of Strawberrysoup, a web design agency with offices in Chichester and Bournemouth. Strawberrysoup specialise in creative web design, content managed websites, search engine optimisation, search engine marketing and graphic design

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