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Improving Website Navigation:
12 Best Practices, Tips
& UX Rules
None of us wants our visitors to feel lost in a dense forest with no forward or backwards route. They may have no other option but to survive if it’s an actual forest. However, it’s not the case with your website. It takes less than a second for your visitors to exit. Website navigation acts as a roadmap (or sitemap) for site visitors, enabling them to quickly get to all the information on a website.
Navigation plays a vital role in your site engagement and conversion. When it comes to designing engaging UI, navigations are often overlooked by designers. Unfortunately, sites face complex navigation issues (many not identical), impacting your website’s functionality and usability.
Talking all this, it’s obvious to have questions about what features make good website navigation and how one can improve its site navigation. While before diving into answers to these, Let’s understand the prominent types of website navigation.
(primary navigation or main menu bar)
As the name suggests, it is the top menu on your website homepage. This navigation bar includes links to the most integral pages of your website. Main navigation usually consists of all introductory pages and top-level sections of the site hierarchy. It gives visitors an overview of business, and the information website includes. The main menu helps users to explore a site and seek relevant data quickly and efficiently.
(Page level navigation or sub-navigation)
Local navigation is page-specific, including links to the web pages within a particular site hierarchy. In simple words, this level of navigation displays a list of options with similar or associative interests. Contextual links or read more links come under this navigation type.
Local navigation may vary from page to page, depending on the site hierarchy. It can be taken as sub-labels for each primary page under the main menu bar. The most common navigation bar designs for local menus are :
Collapsible Sidebar of WordPress Dashboard
HB Websol – footer view
*Note that the local navigation bar could have many other styles. Mentioned above are the most common ones.
A hierarchical website navigation model can be adapted to provide a clear and smooth path from the top level (homepage) to the action-specific level (conversion pages). This can be implemented differently (depending on users’ behavior or flow of information) using a website navigation tree or flowchart. This navigation mechanism benefits websites with thousands of web pages and rich content.
Drop-down or fly-out menus are the best examples of hierarchical website navigation.
Important note –
Not all level of navigation on a site is built using similar mechanisms. Every web page has a different purpose and significance, based on which they are classified into different levels of site hierarchy. For example – navigation on a “Product” page must require various sub-classification and options, which may not be the case with “About us” page.
There is no predefined definition for good navigation. Still, websites with the best navigations must meet some fundamentals. Paying attention to those websites, we listed below some of the essential features of good website navigation –
Poorly constructed navigation is a huge UX disappointment as half of your users cannot quickly access the relevant information. Effectual groundwork can help you reduce this ratio. Whether it’s a single page or multi-page website, planning (even before starting designing) could be beneficial.
Start with creating an order of your website hierarchy. Prioritize your content and web pages and determine which page falls under what section. You can create a sitemap or blueprint of your website for better classification.
Plan a structure of your navigation menu that find answers to questions like – What navigation styles go well with your other website content? Does your website have enough sub-sections to be arranged in a drop-down manner? And so on.
When our eyes constantly read the same visuals, our brain captures it. Similarly, your users’ brain captures an image of uniform elements in your website GUI. One of which is your menu bar. It becomes smooth for end users to readily understand from where and how to get the desired information. Visitors will feel disoriented if the site’s top navigation keeps changing with every click (except in necessary conditions). They may struggle to find relevant pages and not think twice about leaving you.
Try to keep your primary navigation consistent on all pages. Use consistent color schemes and placement for your navigations. Furthermore, fix the top menu to all pages (site wide menu) so that users can easily switch between the main sections of your website.
Use relatable and logical terms in your menu bar. Your users should get a general idea of what’s inside from navigation. Don’t fluff or use jargon words that prevent navigation from being understandable.
Navigation is to help our users interact with our site, so use language which is user-friendly, easy to comprehend and concise.
Descriptive labels that resonate most with the page information can increase retention time and reduce bounce rates. Moreover, you can even use targeted keywords in your navigation labels to help search engines index your pages and menu content. It improves your on-page SEO.
I have seen websites with too many options or links over top navigation, sidebars, and text content. Mainly eCommerce websites dealing in a range of products do not consider sorting important links from a prolonged list. Overall makes the website interface look ugly and cluttered.
Pre-limit the items to the main navigation (not more than 7). Avoid long lists – it affects the scannability of your menu bars. Instead, Use hierarchical navigation styles (like an embedded menu) to classify similar options under a single unit. Well-organized menus with fewer items are also easily readable by search engines.
✔ H&M created cohesive sections and subsections for their side navigation so that all pages could be easily scannable and navigable.
❌ This website has an excessive menu list which is ineffectively categorized. They created unnecessary subcategories, confusing users in finding relevant information quickly.
Your website navigation aims to enhance your users’ site journey. Most designers deeply study new trends in creative website navigation designs, but few of them bother to test that – is it usable enough for your end users?
Study your users’ behavior – ensure that your menu is navigable and helps users to locate information quickly. Furthermore, Not all navigation UX influence all websites equal. It varies according to website goals and its audience. You can perform A/B testing of your site navigation to ascertain what works well for your users. Use user-friendly structure and mechanisms to create a comprehensive navigation design.
Sticky navigation is the modern navigation technique for sites having long.. long web pages. The persistent navigation bar or Sticky menu remains intact (unmoved) on users’ screens when they scroll down to the page. This is a notable UX improvement since users won’t have to scroll all the way up to switch between sections.
Thinking as a user, we prevent moving deep into long pages when we observe losing our way back to other pages (start feeling like in the middle of the sea). And if you feel the need even one time to go up to navigation, you’ll lose interest in going back and continuing to read that page. As a result, the retention time for a particular page decreases.
Persistent navigation isn’t just about top navigation. But you can even stick sidebar navigation to nearly all website areas. If not this, Many websites also embed a small upward arrow (🔼) in the below corner, which takes you up with a click.
What’s better than this is that you allow your visitors not to find but type what they are looking for. Custom search bars are great navigation practice for e-commerce websites. Websites with dense navigation trees and too many options make it bothersome for visitors to look for information. Within 5 seconds, they’re going to decide whether they’ll stay or leave.
However, search bars are not an ideal navigation element for all websites. Though search bars make it easy and handy to interact, if your website does not have such detailed classification and content, it will become something inutile occupying space for no good. Understanding your website hierarchy and need is critical before embedding search bars.
Note it: Every label in a navigation bar must be linked to some page. Navigation tabs, links and utility buttons aren’t a part of flowery items on your website interface. Neither your logo should be. Therefore add a homepage link to your logo that must be available on all pages in one of the top corners.
Even if the home tab is added to the main navigation, the logo should still link to the home. This way, you get one bonus internal link to your homepage (SEO improvement). This also make easy for users to copy your homepage link without even landing to homepage.
While switching between pages, visitors are likely to forget their path. You probably don’t want your users to feel lost on your site. And this is why adding breadcrumb navigation is crucial.
Breadcrumbs are a horizontal list of links – generally below the top nav bar – including all previous page links users travelled until the current page link – within a specific site hierarchy. These links are separated using arrows (>) or slashes (/) between each page link.
Breadcrumbs (or breadcrumb trails) come under local navigation. They help users understand the context between links they visited under a particular hierarchical structure and indicate to users their location on a page. Like Search bars, this is another modern navigation technique which is effective for complex hierarchical websites.
Website navigation is part of GUI, where visuals can influence users’ navigation paths. Hence it’s vital to create a clickable navigation design. Here are some tips for creating visually appealing navigation.
Starbucks has beautifully created entire site navigation under its brand color scheme.
Even If you’re using a responsive website design where their other elements might get adjusted by default, mobile navigation has different principles. The way users behave or interact on mobiles is unlike that on desktops. Therefore the route needs to be recreated exclusively for mobile users.
Long top-nav bars, tabs, and detailed sidebars can affect the site’s main content. Small screens can’t bear the crowded interface of these kinds of menus.
An expandable menu is the most effective practice to make your website navigation precise and readable on mobiles. You must have seen the hamburger icon (≡) in the site’s top corners. These styles are effective in giving users more control over the interface. Moreover, it eliminates hindrances in users’ interaction with the current page.
Some navigation standards are still followed since the old school days. While navigating soo many websites in a day, there are some basic patterns our users are familiar with. Changes in those conventions can confuse users. And they probably miss the action required to be taken. Some of these conventions are:
A single step can lead you to many good changes in your website. Good site navigation can maximize your website traffic and contribute to business growth. Apart from the above, many other best practices could make your website easily navigable.
Our team can help you implement those custom navigation solutions exclusively for your website. We thoroughly understand your site’s information and create a path that end users can quickly understand.
Contact us today for an effective UI/UX design and the best website navigation services.
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