The Principles of Excellent Website Navigation

1. http://perthwebsitedesigners.com/ The Principles of Excellent Website Navigation There are a lot of reasons why many websites fail to achieve their purpose, or meet their specified targets. One of these is poor navigation. According to a study made by Forrester Research, 50% of potential sales are lost because web users cannot find the information they need, and 40% of users do not return to a website when their initial visit gave them a negative experience. However, the good news is that creating a successful navigation menu or system for a website is not hard to do. Here’s a helpful guide on the principles of excellent website navigation. Navigation Should Be Distinct & Simple When creating a website’s navigation system or road-map, veteran Perth website designers stress that the navigation buttons and tool bars should be visually separated and easy to find. The navigation buttons must also not use the same colour, font and size as the body text, but should stand out instead. To make a website navigable, the designer should help site visitors quickly see what information is available, and where to go to find them, on autopilot. If the visitor has to think real hard about what to do or where to go, then he or she should be considered a lost customer. The Navigation Model Should be Consistent & Clear When designing websites, the same navigation model should be used in all pages. It’s because without a consistent design, the user could think that he or she is in another website. The site’s menu links should also exactly do what they say. Thus, designers should use simple and obvious terms, as well as use those that are easy to figure out. The site’s text should also be kept short and descriptive, and direct to the point. Never ever leave your visitors solving a puzzle or riddle, because they won’t bother, and they’ll rate this as one nasty user experience.

2. It Should Be Descriptive & Concise When designing a website, it would be best to avoid using generic terms or captions, which do nothing to communicate with site visitors e.g., “Services” or “Products”. Always make it a point to make site visitors know in advance what the website’s products or services are. Web designers also need to remember that too many items in the main menu disperse, or scatter, a visitor’s attention. This explains why it’s important to remove less important details, make the more important ones more prominent, and make users more focused on the most important links. In addition, creative web design experts also stress that designers plan their navigation along with the website information architecture, so they could figure out what key features the website offers, what’s important and what’s not, and what could be safely placed in the information hierarchy’s lower levels.