Web Presentation Guide 5.1
Navigation
Action
Create Web sites that are easy to navigate. Plan and design for clear and consistent navigational links.
Why
A well-planned navigation scheme will allow a user to interact with a Web site and find content easily.
What/How
A web visitor must be able to navigate a web site without being required to understand the structure of the organization. Consistent navigation will reflect and clarify the site's organization and
information architecture.
- Present consistent navigational choices throughout the site to help users understand and learn its structure.
- Place primary and important links on every page, in the same location, and in the same sequence.
- Ensure that the user's current location in the site is clear and obvious, relative to the organization and hierarchy of the site's major categories.
- Provide a link to the home page on every page. At a minimum, add a "Home" text link in a consistent location on every page within your website. In addition, link your organization's logo to the homepage.
- Consider placing the organization's logo (linked to the home page) in the page header.
- Adopt a consistent approach that focuses on site visitors' goals and interests. Consider both their roles in relation to your site and the tasks that they hope to accomplish.
- Provide visitors with clear and simple navigation paths to complete tasks and accomplish goals.
- Use multiple navigation paths (e.g. search, index, menus, etc.) to provide different users with different ways to access the information, depending upon their needs and background knowledge.
- Use a combination of task-based and role-based navigation systems to provide a wide range of typical site visitors with obvious and direct ways to quickly find what they are looking for.
- Task-based: Use hyperlink text that describes in short, simple, and intuitively obvious terms the specific task that a user can accomplish via that link (e.g. "Start a business" or "Find a job.")
- Role-based: Use hyperlink text that describes in short, simple, and intuitively obvious terms the typical role of the users who are targeted by that link (e.g. "For Homeowners" or "For Employers.")
- Use clear, specific, and informative terms for the text in hyperlinks. Avoid generic and/or uninformative link text such as "Click here."
- Provide unambiguous visual cues that will help users to determine where they are on the site and readily identify the options that are available from that location. Common methods include:
- Provide a topical index, site map, and/or internal site search function.
- Use the page title tag to provide a concise, meaningful description of content.
- Provide alternatives to the browser back button for navigation.
- Perform navigation testing with typical users.
- Ensure that the navigation scheme works for specified target audiences by usability testing. See Usability for more information.
Checklist: Navigation
Resources
Related guide topics