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Website usability and navigation are extremely important,as a user will not usually spend more than seconds trying to figure out your navigation structure. If a user cannot immediately determine a navigation scheme, then you have confused and probably lost a visitor.

A popular book I read a while back on web usability is "Don't make me think" by Steve Krug, which basically just details why it is important to make a web site navigation as simple and easy as possible. Users of web sites are typically in a hurry, and are only scanning the website for specific information. If they cannot easily see a link to page two, page three, page four etc. and how to navigate back and fourth then they will get frustrated and likely not come back to that site.

A few ideas I have always found to be helpful as a web designer and information architect are to place the main navigation in a easily seen part of the page such as the middle top area or the left column (or both). It is helpful to also include links in the bottom area of the page(the footer). On any given page make sure the user can navigate to any page in the site and certainly back to the home page.

In the sites I have developed I also make sure there is a "bread crumbs" navigation on all of the pages, other than the home page. These are link telling the user what page they are on, and where they are in the site structure, such as a third level page would tell the user they are on page "Z" and they are within the second level "Y" which is the secondary level within "X" at the root level. This way the user can easily go up levels of the site if they need to navigate back from which they came. The name "bread crumbs" actually came about from the German fairy tale Hansel and Gretel where they left bread crumbs to determine where they had been, after being taken into the woods by the wood cutter.

The user always need to know exactly on what page they are on. Use CSS (cascading style sheets) to indicate the page the user is on within the navigation, and make sure you have a with the name of the page listed prominently towards the top of the content.

Lastly, it is always good information architecture to have a site map page which basically displays every page in your site and how they relate to the other pages. For example the main navigation pages, the secondary pages, beneath the main level, third level pages etc. The link to this site map should be part of the main navigation featured on the home page.

Learn more about this author, Bruce Gilbert.
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