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Web_Site_Design_How_To_Get_Around
| Web Site Design: How To Get Around
Our web site (Internet Tips and Secrets - http://www.internet-
tips.net/ ) runs an awards program which gets as many as fifty
submissions a week. That means we visit each of those fifty
sites each and every week to determine if they measure up to the
criteria for the awards. Do you know that at least half of those
sites make our job as award masters very easy because their
navigation is so poor we cannot easily determine how to get from
page to page?
Nothing will chase away visitors as effectively as poor
navigation. If you don't have a clear, easy-to-understand and
easy-to-find navigation system, you practically guarantee that
your visitors will never leave the home page of your site.
You should begin planning your navigation system early in the
design phase of your site. It is critically important to have
defined how your visitors get around before you write a single
line of code. Why? Because of the static nature of HTML, it
become extremely difficult to change after your site gets fairly
significant. It is even difficult to change if you use fancy
JavaScript, Java or server-side systems.
What should a good navigation system address?
Navigation must be visible - Your visitors must be able to find
your menu or other system immediately upon glancing at your
site. This is one of the most critical rules of all. Your
visitors will not spend much time looking around to figure out
how to get deeper into your site. The web is too big - they will
simply surf elsewhere.
Your navigation must be consistent - You must present the same
exact navigation scheme on every single page of your web site.
This will serve to pull your visitors in deeper and deeper ...
once they get used to your scheme they will use it without
thinking. If you keep changing it from page to page, you just
give people one more reason to leave your site.
Navigation must work without graphics - Many people surf the web
without graphics enabled. Why? Because when you are on a dialup,
it's faster by far. I used to do this before I had DSL - I
turned off graphics until I found the page I wanted, then I
turned the graphics on. This implies that if your navigation
scheme is entirely graphics oriented, then you will lose a small
percentage of your audience. Many people include a second
navigation scheme at the bottom of each page of their web site.
This has become a de-facto standard, and just about anyone who
surfs with graphics off knows to look down to the last few lines
of a page to find the menus.
Don't use frames - I know it is tempting, since making a menu
system seems to be the perfect application for frames. I would
advise avoiding this temptation. Frames are becoming more and
more frowned upon by surfers and webmasters alike. Why? Search
engines don't tend to like them very much and it confuses
surfers since the URL is the URL of the frame page and not the
page which they are looking at.
Navigation should tell your visitors where they are - The best
navigation systems not only allow visitors to get around a site,
they inform them as to their location within the site. Just look
at how Yahoo works as you will see. At the top of each page your
location is shown like so: "Home > Arts > Art History >", which
tells the visitor he's looking at "Art History" in the directory
"Art" under the "Home" directory. He can click on any of these
to go higher in the list at any time.
Some pages should be referenced on every page of your site - You
should have a "Home" button on every single page. It's also wise
to include a way to sign the guestbook and contact the webmaster
on every page as well. I also like to include a link to the
privacy policy, copyright notice and legal information at the
bottom of every page.
Avoid fancy navigation systems - I prefer the Yahoo approach of
straight HTML links myself, and I tend to surf longer on sites
which include these kinds of navigation systems. JavaScript and
Java menus look very good but if your visitors surf with these
features disabled they will not have access to your menus. And
given the security scares lately, many people are turning these
features off or limiting their use.
Avoid ActiveX and VBScript altogether - I love ActiveX and
VBScript on an intranet. This is because on an intranet it is
possible to guarantee that everyone who will access the site
uses Internet Explorer. However, you cannot ensure this on the
web, so my recommendation is to avoid these entirely. In
addition, the security scheme of ActiveX is so weak that it's
common for many people, especially corporate sites, to
completely disallow ActiveX controls downloaded from the
internet. (Why is ActiveX security weak? Because it depends upon
the user to make a decision as to the security of the ActiveX
control. I know that when I am presented with a box saying "do I
trust xyz control?", I don't usually have any idea. How would I
know if the code is trustworthy? My tendency is to just say no.)
To sum it all up, if you want your visitors to explore your
site, then you have to make it easy for them. The easier and
more straightforward you make your navigation, the deeper people
will tend to surf.
About the author:
Richard Lowe Jr. is the webmaster of Internet Tips And Secrets.
This website includes over 1,000 free articles to improve your
internet profits, enjoyment and knowledge. Web Site Address:
http://www.internet-tips.net Weekly newsletter:
http://www.internet-tips.net/joinlist.htm Daily Tips:
mailto:internet-tips@GetResponse.com
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