Navigation

This is the method that site visitors use to get round your site. There is an almost endless variety of navigation elements, but the differences are mainly in the transition effects when you mouse over an element, or click on it.

In most web sites, its a good idea to have a main navigation strip somewhere on your pages, and to ensure that its in the same position on every page of your site. If you need additional menu options on different pages, it’s best to create separate sub menus.

Another alternative is to use “Mouse Over” Sub Menus. These present sub menu choices when a mouse pointer hovers over a main navigation button, as illustrated below:

One of the best options for site navigation is to use a main menu structure that links visitors to the main sections of your site. You can than have different links appear on each main section page to direct your visitors to sub-pages. This site uses this technique to keep navigation simple and relevant. Notice how our main menu is always in view at the top of the screen, whilst additional links appear in the left column when a main menu item is selected. This arrangement  prevents your site from becoming cluttered with too many navigation elements.

You can also create additional links to sub-pages of your site by incorporating a “More Info” button on the main section page. Hovering a mouse over the button could give visitors a choice of additional pages to visit. The example below shows how this works.

The links in the example above don’t actually go anywhere - It’s just to show you how the drop-down options work

General Guidance

Try yo not have more than 6 to 10 main navigation buttons on your page. Put additional navigation elements within each main section of your site.

Always place main navigation elements at the top of your pages. They can be positioned as a horizontal strip across the top of the page, or a vertical strip on the left or right of the page.

Try and incorporate a secondary main menu at the foot of your pages (text menus work well in this position). This is a particularly useful feature if you have quite long pages in your web site.