What is navigation in designing a website?

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Experienced designers know navigation website design should be user-friendly. Since a visitor who got lost on the portal could not find the necessary information due to confusing transitions, he will simply leave the resource for a competing company and never return. For this reason, well-executed navigation is an important criterion when developing a website.

The navigation system on the site is a collection of hyperlinks. This is intended for quick transition between sections on the portal in the process of searching for information of interest. Links can be of several types:

  • graphic;
  • text.

Rollover links can be used separately. If you click or hover over them, the view changes. This concerns the color and size of the font.

What is a user-friendly navigation system?

Links in the text should be such that they can be easily seen. Therefore, they need to be highlighted with underlining and a different color. The active link, when you hover over it, takes the form of a hand. By this indicator, the user can understand that this text is a hyperlink.

Viewed from the user’s perspective, user-friendly navigation must meet several criteria, and the guest must clearly understand the following points:

  • where exactly it is located;
  • what you saw;
  • which pages you can still visit.

To get information on them, there are several rules. If the user has already clicked on the links, they differ in color from those that the person has not yet clicked on.

Many people ask how many links should be placed on the site. It is difficult to answer unequivocally, since it all depends on the number of pages. The required amount is determined by research. The main requirement: you need so many pages for the user to be comfortable. The navigation system should not take up much space. The area of ​​this should be no more than 15% of the total available space.

Navigation system and structure development process

When working on hyperlinks and navigation, you only need to start after you have defined the entire content and objectives of the site. Otherwise, the materials may simply not fit into the structure. If the page will soon be removed, then it will be necessary to change the links that linked it to other pages.

What are the types of navigation?

To categorize by type, there are several criteria: visual and functional. Accordingly, the functions of the navigation system are divided as follows:

  • linguistics is intended for the interface of languages. This is used when displaying content in the language the user needs;
  • main. These are the most important sections of the resource, it can be a menu;
  • global: this includes links that must be displayed from any page, including the home page;
  • advertising is intended for the purpose of attracting visitors to advertising pages where the range of goods and services is placed;
  • thematic is used when navigating through sections of one heading;
  • text – these are hyperlinks from the content. From the users’ point of view, they are required to direct to the desired material. If we look at it from the side of optimization, this is the linking of the site;
  • the index is also called the reference. The hyperlink is meant to indicate where the user is located;
  • geographic is intended for those resources that include materials about different states.

Depending on the visual design, it is divided into the following types:

  • the textual one coincides in a certain functional plan with the textual one, is the most ancient type;
  • graphical is considered the most popular, it allows using graphical display for any type of functional navigation;
  • HTML forms are designed to save space by using opening or drop-down elements;
  • Java and Flash technologies are used to organize a reaction to an action when you hover the cursor, click with the mouse or use the keyboard.

It takes a lot of effort to create navigation correctly. It is far from always possible to do it right away. Development begins when the design is created. Specialists of the Fireart company are always ready to help in solving these and other issues.

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