Surfing around the net I discovered a difference in philosophy on, of all things, Navigation links. So why write an article about it?
Well for the completely clueless, navigation links are the hyper links (short-form: links) in say a header menu, a side-bar menu, or a footer menu. In fact they can show up anywhere, even inside a blog post, or website page. These take you to important areas, or areas that a designer/ site owner want to draw your attention and have you visit.
Navigation links are honestly vital to any website. I mean otherwise how would people get to the different sections of you web-site? Seriously. Simple answer is they wouldn’t because generally they wouldn’t know the other portions of the site even existed.
Generally navigation depends on the culture, country, and eye-flow of a particular group of people. No joke. The Japanese and Chinese do not read their magazines, nor do they write their alphabet, the same way much of the “European” countries do. In fact culture has a lot to do with site design in general, but more on that later.
So, what are “Good” navigation links?
It seems that WordPress feels that “Good Navigation Links” belong to the side or on the bottom. Buh?
Every Web Site Design reference I find points to Header (in the top of the site) or side-bar links. Those references that offer insight into designing for the end-user in mind (very important aspect most people forget to do – keep the end user in mind), point out that culture and how their are raised to read their print materials should be kept in mind when designing a site’s navigation.
Print material? Maybe WordPress Codex has something in their ideal?
Huh?
Look at any magazine, newspaper, poster, postcard, or more and you’ll see what I mean.
Where is the index to a newspaper? What portion do you look at to find where the job section is located? The bottom.
Check out magazines. How do they list their table of contents? Side-bars, or double columns. This leaves room for more advertisements in the table of contents area.
Now go grab a manga, and not an American Knock-off manga. If you can’t find one of them, try to find any real Japanese magazine. Not only are they laid out different, but their table of contents are different as well.
But only slightly! They still have the side menus. Food for thought.
So What makes for Good Navigation?
It comes down to content and what is the site’s main focus? Is it a blog or a static site? Is it s static site with a blog? Then you have the concept of what kind of culture are you catering to and how have their populations been raised when it comes to media that is read?
Generally the top, “header”, navigation has been around long enough that far too many people are used to it. So one should’t just dismiss them entirely. I would suggest using them for static sites mostly. This is one of the key items that helps gives a web-site (rather then a blogging site) it’s feel.
Side-menus will never go out of style. People of all culutres are used to using them in various forms.
If you are using a Blog, and you want to give it that quality of a newspaper or a more text-oriented feel, go with a bottom menu. Just beware that a lot of users may not understand where your navigation links are located and get lost in your site. This is where the rest of the site’s design should help by drawing the eye towards your links.
Over all, I would highly recommend using only two of the three options. In many ways less is more. Unless you are building a site that will have a lot of links (search engines, news sites, etc, for example), you don’t want to confuse you end-user with too many links or HUGE menus.
End Note
Which brings me to another concept, simplifying your navigation menus. It is an easier read for the end user if you have 7 or fewer main links in you primary navigation menu.
If there is a lot of important information, you may wish to add a footer menu, and make the links smaller. Often links to legal references, policies, faq’s, extra contact link, job offers and the like can be found in footer menus. But since they are at the bottom most often they don’t catch the eye and detract from a site’s overall design.
So it is highly recommended that when developing navigation links you take into consideration what you can group together under a specific link.
Review
So in the K.I.S.S. method here is a brief list of what one should keep in mind when designing navigation menus.
- Theme: Blog or Static site?
- End User Culture
- Simplify Links: Grouping
Enjoy!
