Where Am I? Improve Your Site Navigation!

[BellisimaJ.]

A simple and helpful article.

It seems strange to be talking about something as basic as “navigation” 11 years into the web era. And yet, if you’re a web designer, chances are you’ve made some mistakes in this fundamental area. I know I have. So let’s go back to basics.

On a website, “navigation” doesn’t mean just links. Navigation is, like most elements of a website, about communicating with the user. Good navigation tells a story, and good stories have a beginning, middle, and end.

Navigation also has three parts, which are used to communicate to the user about their past, present, and future. Any good global navigation scheme should, at a glance, answer the top three questions every user has at the back of their mind on any page:

  1. Where am I? (Present)
  2. Where can I go? (Future)
  3. Where have I been? (Past)

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/whereami