Random Terrain's Tetraternarium - Global Navigation

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Global Navigation

(Web Design Tips and Opinions)

 

 

It's best to have the same navigation on every page, in the same place, and in the same order. It makes it easier for visitors and gives them a kind of comfort zone. All navigation links should be recognizable at a glance. Most visitors don't like a navigation Easter egg hunt.

 

 

 

Deactivate Current Page Links

 

I've been to some web sites where you don't really know where you are and then you end up clicking on the navigation for the page that you are already on. Those are two problems that can be easily fixed. Clearly label each page and turn off the navigation link for the active page. Any navigation link that points to the current page should be made 'unclickable' because it gives your visitors one less thing to deal with.

 

Remember, deactivate the link, but leave it there. Some people delete the link instead. That's not a good idea. Letting the deactivated link sit there helps make it even clearer to your visitors what page they are on. Changing the color of the deactivated link so it stands out from the rest is also a good idea.

 

 

 

Above the Fold

 

Navigation should be above the fold and at the bottom of each page. If all of your pages are small and the content pretty much stays 'above the fold' anyway, the bottom navigation isn't necessary unless you want button or tab navigation at the top and text navigation at the bottom.

 

There should always be some type of text navigation on your pages somewhere. One reason is because some visitors use browsers that don't display images.

 

 

 

Avoid Elaborate Navigation

 

Another thing you might want to think about is making your navigation as plain and easy to use as possible. Drop-down or cascading menus, glide-in menus, scrolling menus, pull-down menus, slide-down menus, hierarchy menus, portable menus and menus that follow you around are usually irritating and hard to use. If you feel the need to impress people, try to impress them with your content, not your navigation. Elaborate navigation only impresses newbies and the clueless anyway, so why not try to make things easier for the rest of your visitors?

 

Many people will not be able to use your web site if you use Javascript navigation since more and more people are using browsers that block Javascript. If you absolutely must use Javascript navigation, at least add normal text link navigation at the bottom of your pages.

 

 

 

Cascading Menus

 

There are a growing number of web sites that use slow-loading, cascading menus that bog down navigation. Most of the cascading menus menus I've tried at web sites are very hard to use. Move you mouse pointer over a link and a list of choices pop out of that and more choices pop out of those choices, and so on. You have to be a master mouse manipulator or the menu will pop back up before you get a chance to click on your choice.

 

Some web designers say that visitors are stupid if they have a difficult time using slow, poorly done, hard to use menus. If you're one of those 'web designers,' tattoo the following quote on your forehead and it might eventually sink in:

 

Form follows function.

~Louis Henri Sullivan

 

 

Mouseover Buttons

 

Some web designers avoid fancy navigation and just go for a simple mouseover effect. That's not so bad if the images are small in file size, but it is bad when they don't preload the mouseover images. Every time you put the mouse pointer over one of their navigation buttons, you have to wait for the second image to load. It's a problem that doesn't have to exist because there are at least two easy ways to preload images. They can be found using a search engine such as Google.

 

Two reasons I can think of why people forget to preload images is that they test the page from their hard drive or they test it using only high-speed connections. When you test your own site, try to use different types of connections, and to be accurate, clear your cache before you visit so you are seeing your site the way most first-time visitors do.

 

 

 

Random Terrain

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