Best practice of Web navigation design worth learning and summarizing

High-quality web design usually has a very good navigation design to support. If your site has interesting content and popular visual design, then a good experience, usability and excellent navigation bar is undoubtedly necessary. Availability and ease of use have always been the core of efficient interaction and the basis for stimulating creativity, creating efficient design and excellent visual design. So it's time to revisit your menu and navigation design and try to organize them in a minimalist way.

Navigation is essential. The high quality is the website navigation is lets the website from the good to the remarkable path. Today, the ever-changing Web navigation design began to become systematic, rule-based, the best practice of Web navigation is not illusory urban legends, and today we want to talk about is this.

　　The importance of perfect navigation design

Best practice, a management concept, believes that there is a technology or approach that makes the results of production management practices optimal and reduces the likelihood of errors. Which is what we often call the "best solution".

Easy to use Web navigation is a good example of successful design and a core component of best practice in navigation design. This kind of navigation design has the consistent link and the clear Content division, may lead the user to explore to the website deeper place, the real welcome posture lets the user stay longer.

At the same time, if you design the entire operating process as a complex pattern, this means that a series of unrelated operations may be required to achieve the goal, and leaving is a foregone conclusion if the user cannot quickly find the target.

Good navigation bar menu design is like the design of excellent traffic signs, concise and clear, indicating the direction, so that people can more easily and directly to find the target. Of course, the first thing users need to know is where they are, so they can determine what to do next. This is why navigation design is considered a basic element of the user experience.

Today, navigation bar menu design has been very different from the past, many of which have creative original design. But it's still hard to pick a nice, but efficient navigation bar design.

However, the navigation bar design trend is slowly changing, from the visual-led, gradually transformed into modern web navigation best practices. The most typical is to use the Hamburg menu to receive navigation elements, one click can be opened.

A consistent structure

To keep your users from being confused, you should introduce minimalist elements and logical structures. Users should have access to what they want without delay and without complex operations. So be sure to keep it simple! Don't let users take the time to think about how to find content and how to do it fast enough. The best way to do this is to divide and organize the content so that they are divided into different lists based on different topics, and from the broadest category to the most precise and specific category. Alphabetical arrangement, catalog index, keywords, and glossary can also contribute to the partitioning and indexing of content.

What do users do without navigation bars and menus? Navigation bars and menus are components that are immediately subconsciously sought after a user visits a Web site, and they show a selection of operations and portals, which means they will lead the user to the content.

Availability of

The Hamburg menu is a control container that contains at least two items and is triggered by clicking on a button.

Menus usually contain different items, which usually trigger different actions or actions, which in turn lead to different elements, applications, or websites. The best navigation menu design will be based on the current location and status, dynamic display related content, to remind users.

Project

Each navigation menu has a basic limitation, which is that each action or entry is usually described in one line or single text. Also, the description (or name) should be clear enough to indicate its properties, functions, or effects.

Therefore, usually the description of the sentence or the words are very short, but also can have an icon or an additional explanation, quick way to explain its concept, strengthen.

Static navigation menu is the most common one, the designer will be the most frequently triggered button in the starting position.

Dynamic navigation menus Otherwise, the most recently used items are placed in the priority position, and the order is modified based on the behavior of the visitors.

Basic Menu

The basic menu is very simple, it will be placed on the edge of the screen, our idea is to allow them to be a priority for users to see or click.

As a result, the basic menu is a relatively perfect solution for mobile-end devices, and it should also be able to clearly show all the options associated with a particular project.

　　Efficient Navigation design Skills

The best site navigation usually meets the following basic characteristics:

Carefully categorized links

You should be fully aware of the importance of rational organization of links. A carefully categorized link system allows users to easily find the right content without having to search through different categories.

Be sure to remember that the location of the links is very important, and when users switch back and forth on the page, the pages they have visited before may be more important to them.

　　Gap and emphasis

For navigation bar design, clear display and conspicuous design is also an important point: you should let the right link in the right place. In addition, the best navigation bar location is usually the top and left side of the site, and for the eyes, these two positions are the first to be seen.

However, don't make the navigation bar too conspicuous, so be careful with the design integration.

　　Consistency

In the successful Web navigation design, consistency is one of the most important principles. The most important links are almost always displayed on every page, and remain in the same position all the while exercising the same function. It's very confusing to have a link in a different place on a different page.

Understandable

Let users always focus on and keep the content simple and understandable. Compared to the smelly and long link name, intuitive and easy to understand short links will be more space, and easier to be understood by users. One thing can be sure, most of the time, users will only know the link to the approximate target situation, will really click down!

The right organizational structure

A reasonable link organization is the basis for creating a well-designed menu, especially when your site involves a lot of categories and links.

It can even be said that navigation design is a key factor in creating successful websites. It makes the interactive process of the site more intuitive, users can easily open interesting pages through navigation. Excellent navigation is designed to be easy to search for and get content.

As a website designer, the most unwilling to see the situation is that users are trapped in a page, a dilemma. Making it easy for users to navigate from one page to another, to provide additional content to the site, and to attract users with truly effective additional options is a pretty good choice.

　The last Thought

The correct navigation design is the basis of usability, easy to use navigation can help users locate content, solve problems, naturally easier to retain users. At the same time, high efficiency is also a problem that can not be ignored: navigation bar to be able to use, easy-to-use, but also fast and reliable operation. In addition, the response of the navigation bar design is the focus of the entire site design, after all, the mobile end is today the real meaning of the "first screen."