|
2 Tips On Effectively Organizing Your
Navigation
by: Jamie Kiley
Not all links
are created equal.
While all of
your links may be important, you must sort
and prioritize to come up with an effective
navigation scheme. Here's what you should
keep in mind:
1. Sort your
links
Your links
should be organized according to their
relationship to each other. Any time you can
find a way to divide your links into two or
more categories, do so.
If you have
more than 5 or 6 links, categorizing becomes
very important. Try to find some natural
groups. For example, suppose you sell
widgets, and your site has this set of
links:
-
Mini widgets
-
Multi-colored widgets
-
Discounted
widgets
-
Contact us
-
About the
company
-
News
Your major
categories are:
When you
separate the two sets of links according to
those major categories, it becomes much
easier to sort the available information.
The simple
reason is that a choice between two items is
less complex than a choice between 6 items.
It's the principle of dividing and
conquering.
Take a look at
the following site:
Notice the
four main categories--Products, Resources,
Support and Purchase. These four categories
help visitors narrow down at a glance which
area they need to look in to find the info
they want.
Imagine if all
of those links were lumped into one long
list. How much harder would it be to figure
out where to go?
Often, you
might not have clear-cut categories. For
example, you may have three links that all
go together in one category (such as
"Products"), plus several more miscellaneous
links. Even if the miscellaneous links don't
fit conveniently under one category name,
you can still group your links. Put the
three product links together, then all the
miscellaneous links in a separate place.
2. Prioritize
your links
Hopefully, you
have some idea of what you want visitors to
do on your site. Your site should be
designed to drive a specific action--in
other words, get visitors to do a specific
thing.
Once you've
decided what your primary goal is, your
navigation should reflect it. The links that
pertain most closely to your main goals
should be emphasized the most. You need to
guide the visitor in the direction you want
him or her to go.
Prioritize.
Ask yourself the question, "What is most
important?" What do you really want to
accomplish? (I'll give you a hint: "About
the company" should not be a top priority
link.)
Here are
several examples of sites that prioritize
well:
On the home
page, you'll see three main links. These
links are geared at attracting the company's
major types of customers. All other links on
the page are much smaller.
On this page,
it's clear that the company wants visitors
to click on one of their three product
links: Publish, Search or Promote. The site
does a good job of getting attention and
guiding the visitor in a specific direction.
Right from the
beginning, it's obvious that the company
wants visitors to join one of their three
clubs. All other links are relegated to the
bottom of the page.
By carefully
prioritizing, these sites are able to narrow
down the choices and make it more likely
that visitors will head in the direction
they want them to go.
<< Back to "Web Design
Company" Index
|
