Good web navigation design is not about giving people lots and lots of choices. It is not about second guessing decisions we have made. It’s not about asking what if we want to get back to where we were. It’s about looking forward, not about looking backward. Full Article on GerryMcGovern.com >>
“Content Guru” Gerry McGovern chimes in on designing a navigational model for websites.
Initially the post really reasonated with me—especially the part about people just using the “Back” button to go back, so no need to put that sort of link on the page.
But it just struck me, Gerry is ignoring one major factor when it comes to web site design and use;
Not everyone comes into your site at the home page.
Put another way, people don’t always use your site in a linear fashion, because they came in via a search engine and land on a page deep within your structure.
Gerry writes:
Navigation should primarily be about helping us keep on going in the direction we have chosen. If I choose a link for “notebooks” then I have made a decision. Continuing to present me with links for servers and desktops decreases my ability to focus on the notebook direction I have chosen.
In reality, someone may land directly on the “notebooks” page but in fact need to get from there to desktops.
While many sites do overkill pages with navigation, some amount of alternative navigation is required. I guess the question becomes just how much? If users have to jump from notebooks to home to desktops rather than from notebooks directly to desktops, will that extra step of navigation cause them to leave?
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