10 Website Navigation Tips For A Stellar User Experience
Website navigation can make or break the user-experience of your website. It’s the backbone of your website, allowing users to easily find what they’re looking for and navigate from page to page. In fact, studies show that poor navigation is one of the top reasons why users leave a website. So, it’s crucial to pay attention to your website’s navigation and make sure it’s intuitive, accessible, and user-friendly.
10 Website Navigation Tips for a Stellar User Experience
01 — PLAN NAVIGATION WITH A SITEMAP
When creating a website, a little forward-thinking goes a long way:
Clarify which features and pages your website requires, and what the hierarchy should be.
Do you need an About Us page, a blog or an FAQ section?
Which of these pages is most important or valuable for your site visitors?
To develop this hierarchy, it is a common practice to create a sitemap. A sitemap should include a list of all the main items of your user interface and all the sub-categories within them. Since it will form the base of your navigation menu, this practice should help you clearly indicate which pages are most important for visitors to access.
To create one, you can use any method you find most comfortable: write it by hand, present it as a flowchart or diagram, or type it out on a spreadsheet.
02 — PRIORITIZE YOUR PAGES
When deciding on your hierarchy, consider where you want to lead visitors first. Your goals will depend on what kind of website you’re creating, but here are few guidelines to consider:
How will you direct visitors through your site?
What information is most valuable for you and your visitors?
What is the goal of visiting your website? Can visitors easily achieve that goal just using your navigation menu(s)?
Pages are part of your primary navigation, and should appear in your site’s main menu to make them as accessible as possible.
03 —STICK TO CONVENTIONS
While it may tempting to break the mold (you’re creatives, we totally understand!) there are times when it’s best to stick to best practices. After all, there’s a reason why hyperlinks generally appear blue, or why a logo will usually be placed in one of the top corners of a website. These familiar nuances, or design conventions, exist because they work–and users often rely on them.
You want visitors to glide through your website with ease.
We encourage letting your brand’s identity shine (yes!), keep it mind of course–but when it comes to your website navigation, focus on clarity over boldness.
04 — USE A STICKY MENU
A sticky menu (also referred to as a “fixed” or “floating” menu) is a menu that stays put even as visitors scroll down your site. This is especially important for long-scrolling pages, since you don’t want visitors to journey all the way to the top of your site, just to reach another page or menu.
There is also the option of adding a “Back to Top” button that will help users save time. Whichever solution you go for depends on your website’s design and layout, so take into account the different options when considering the most convenient form of navigation for your visitors.
05 —LIMIT THE NUMBER OF ITEMS IN YOUR MENU
Keep your menu minimal, with a maximum of six or seven categories, so users can process the information and reach their desired pages faster. This way, users will be able to process the information easily and reach their desired pages faster.
If your site contains lots of information, you can break it down into sections using a dropdown menu. This means that when visitors hover over one item on your menu, a list of sub-categories will come up that they can choose from.
06 — ADD A SEARCH BAR
A great navigation practice for content-heavy sites is adding a customized search bar. This tool can help users find what they want seamlessly—and fast. A search bar is especially useful for visitors who have less experience surfing the web, since it’s a familiar concept that they can understand intuitively.
In terms of the placement of your search bar, it is a good practice to keep it close to your menu. Just like your navigation menu, it can stay fixed in place when visitors scroll down your site to provide easy access to your site’s pages.
07 — LABEL YOUR MENU CLEARLY
Once you know which items will appear in your menu, you should think strategically about how to label them. Use language that your users are familiar with and avoid industry jargon, confusing terminology or…
Make sure your menu text is clear, logical, intuitive, structured – but not too generic. From there, testing your website’s navigation is important to ensure a positive user-experience. Use analytics to understand how users are interacting with your website and make adjustments as needed.
In addition to making sure items are findable (ahem SEO) a descriptive navigation menu will also hint to Google and other search engines what topic your website is about.
08 — LINK YOUR LOGO BACK TO THE HOMEPAGE
Not doing this is a common web design mistake that can be easily avoided. Your primary navigation menu does not need to include the word “Home” or “Homepage” (in fact, if it does it may appear dated). Instead, your website’s logo should always link it to the homepage. This is a highly intuitive action for most of website users (hello again, web design conventions.)
It doesn’t matter where your logo sits within your website’s header, the most important thing is that it will appear at the top of your site, in fairly close proximity to your menu.
09 —INDICATE WHAT PAGE THE USER IS ON
Nobody likes to feel disoriented—and there’s no exception when navigating a website. You can avoid this for visitors by making it clear where they are on your website.
One of the best, and most sophisticated, ways to do this is adding breadcrumbs to your site. Breadcrumb navigation is a method that displays the user’s location on a page in relation to the rest of the site, making it easy to maneuver.
Breadcrumbs are usually presented across the top of a page as a series of horizontal links separated by the “greater than” (>) symbol—but of course, you can use arrows or other imagery that stays in line with your site’s visual language. (Home > Shop > Women’s > Tops)
A minimalistic option for sites with lengthy content is a status bar, which indicates to the user where they are when making their way through a specific page.
10 — ENSURE VISITORS CAN REACH ANY PAGE, FROM ANY PAGE
A final tip and rule of thumb is that visitors should be able to navigate to any page they desire, from any page. Remember, not everyone will reach your site from its homepage. This means that any other page they land on should connect to the rest of your site.
An easy solution is to ensure that all pages are accessible from the menu, and that each page includes a menu. To make things even more intuitive, keep the website menu design consistent on every page, placing it in exactly the same spot to avoid confusion.
