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>>	Navigation: an often neglected component of web authorship
>>	Navigation Schemes in Web Site Design
>>	Mystery Meat Navigation Site navigation by the use of roll-overs.
>>	Write Menus that Mean Something Register (free) and Login, then use this link. An important Design and Usability detail.
>>	Are your pages upside down? Gradients and placement for Navigation.
>>	Developing Schemas for the Location of Common Web Objects

 

 

"Here are three guidelines for enhancing usability for users who enter your site at interior pages:

• Tell users their arrival point, and how they can proceed to other parts of the site by including these three design elements on every single page:
  • Company name or logo in upper left corner
  • Direct, one-click link to the homepage
  • [An on-page Site Search box] (preferably in the upper right corner)
• Orient the user relative to the rest of the website. If the site has hierarchical information architecture, a breadcrumb trail is usually the best way to do this. Also, include links to other resources that are directly relevant to the current location. Don't bury the user in links to all site areas or to pages that are unrelated to their current location.
• Don't assume that users have followed a drill-down path to arrive at the current page. They may not have seen information that was contained on higher-level pages.

 

 Jakob Nielsen: Deep Linking is Good Linking  
 (Explanatory links added to the above text.)  

 

>>	Is Navigation Useful? An article about what Navigation to provide. Need for navigation within a site structure. Do not try to link to everything else.
>>	Clutter Versus Clicking in Web Design Many navigation links vs. many menu levels.
>>	A flying menu attack . . . can [mortally] wound your navigation.

 

 

    A single level of drop-down menus can sometimes be very effective at enhancing the usability of a Website; if they are used only to provide a shortcut, which offers an alternative to the main (not dynamic) navigation for the Website. This usually means that the "heading" each menu drops down from must also be a clickable link to a separate (intermediary) navigation page.

    The levels of menus provided by this site's top of page "Navigation Card", is my method for not needing dynamic navigation menus. Thus avoiding the browser compatibility issues, and loading performance overhead, that goes along with any use of dynamic Webpages.

 

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E-mail the Webmaster Page Content Updated: March 30, 2003

   

    "Ever wonder why books look like they do? Can you imagine using a reference without page numbers, running headers and footers, or sections? Book design developed not so much because of the technology available, but because when people are looking for information they want to know where they are, where they've been, and how to get where they want to go. People have the same needs on the Web."

 Laura LeMay's Web Workshop: Graphics and Web Page Design, Chapter 1