Making navigation intuitive is the single most important strategic improvement you can make on your website. Why is navigation so important? Navigation acts as a support system to help users find their way to desired content, features and functionality.
Navigation is subtle. It's probably the most challenging aspect of usability design for most designers. For instance, just because you can use dynamic fly-out, pop-out or drop-down menus, does not mean users find them helpful.
Navigation assists at the unconscious level of interaction to help users find their way, mentally map your site, traverse sections and feel in control. Research shows that giving your users the ability to easily navigate your site impacts customer retention, perception of credibility and intention to return to a site.
Navigation provides the scaffolding that helps your users figure out:
- Where to go from the home page
- Where they are in the site if "deep linking" in from another site
- How to get from one area of the site to another
- How to find related information
How do you design intuitive navigation so your users know where to go next? How do you know what works and what doesn't for your users? What is the best way to display a menu or design a navigation system? What area of the screen is the best, and how do you follow best practices?
To answer these questions we use three key techniques: 1) Previous insights into what has worked for users in our previous 300+ user studies; 2) Solid understanding of academic and industry research into navigation system design (Researcher beware- there is a lot of nonsense out there on this topic for example the idol worship given to "breadcrumb navigation" in the Information Architecture community); 3) Test with users and adhere to the Rules of Cognition on the web.
Our expert usability reviews can help you quickly determine if you are on track or not. Our usability design sessions and training can give you the tools to design usable navigation systems.
Our experience has shown that lack of attention to intuitive navigation is one of the single biggest design mistakes that can snowball out of control. We help you overcome the cognitive obstacles that underlie difficult navigation so that you can focus on what really counts to your users.
Our navigation system design work is results driven. We have seen ease of use in a design jump between 40% and 150% after our expert design consultation and recommendations.
Contact us and find out how we can help you improve your usability today.