DESIGNING NAVIGATION

Site navigation not only helps people find where they want to go, but also helps them understand what your site is about and how it is organized. Good navigation tends to follow these principles…

CONCISE

Ideally, the navigation should be quick and easy to read. It is a good idea to try to limit the number of options in a menu to no more than eight links. These can link to section homepages which in turn link to other pages.

CLEAR

Users should be able to predict the kind of information that they will find on the page before clicking on the link. Where possible, choose single descriptive words for each link rather than phrases.

SELECTIVE

The primary navigation should only reflect the sections or content of the site. Functions like logins and search, and legal information like terms and conditions and so on are best placed elsewhere on the page.