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Navigation should always answer 3 questions: Where am I? Where have I been? Where can I go? |
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Do not assume the users know as much about the site as you do. The design should provide an easy-to-understand structure for navigation. |
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Use familiar location for navigation bars, at the TOP or LEFT side of the page. Navigation (menu bars) placed at the top of a site performs best according to Eyetracker study (7/04). |
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Add a link to the Home page on sub level page. Not just a company logo, but text that says “Home”. |
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Avoid the use of frames except in the following instances: |
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keeping track of large lists in one frame while updating the other frame with information |
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using one frame for photo thumbnails and another frame for the larger view |
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Keep in mind "fewer clicks the better" when designing architecture. Users should not have to take more than 3 clicks to get where they want to in the site. |
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Make the user’s current location within the site clear at all times. |
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The primary navigation should consist of 7- 9 items. |
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If icons or images are used for navigation make sure they also have text labels. |
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The use of navigational bread-crumb trails is encouraged. (Example: Directory > News and Media > Industry Information) If breadcrumbs are used, is the last breadcrumb in the string should be a label, not a link. |
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Provide a site map if the site is large, or complex. |
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Avoid the excessive use of rollovers. Avoid flyouts altogether. |
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Users decide what they are going to click on before they move the mouse. Unfortunately the information in fly outs, rollovers, or dropdowns can’t help users decide where to click because the information isn’t available to users when they are making their decision. It isn’t until after they’ve decided where to click that they see what the element has to say. Avoid fly-out menus as they often obscure other content when they are moused over. These menus are often used as a crutch for a bad user interface, or trying to display all navigation information on one page. |
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Navigation areas must be quarantined from advertising elements. |
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Navigation areas must be quarantined from advertising elements. |
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Make page titles concise and meaningful (would they make appropriate labels for bookmarks). |
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Users should be able to recover from errors (i.e. wrong click, etc) - don't make it difficult to return to previous pages. |
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Put a consistent footer on every page. |
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User should not have to mouse over an item to discover whether it's a link and where the link will take them ("Mystery Meat Navigation"). This violates the first rule of navigation: clearly show people where to go. |
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Do not use graphics for primary navigation. Doing this slows load time and hurts search rankings. Search engine spiders cannot read text in graphics. Only use graphics as links to accomplish the following: |
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redundant navigation (e.g. a news photo linking to a news story in addition to the main text link). |
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Linking to a an enlarged version of the same photo (in which case use “click to enlarge” text link as well) |
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When a menu option is clicked, that option should clearly stand out on the destination page (color change, not underlined, etc.). |
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The use of drop-down forms for navigation is discouraged. The judicious use of rollovers on the main nav bar is OK, but the use of jump-menus (drop-down menu that automatically links to a new page without a “Go” button) and drop-downs create usability problems. It’s better to use lists of links. The only instance where drop-downs would be acceptable for navigation is on a page with intractable real estate scarcity. |
Roy Zornow
MS Word version 
