Help Visitors Find the Correct Information - Fast!

One of the easiest ways to tell if a site is useful or not is to check out the navigation. Typically the navigation if found across the top of the page or down the left hand side. The navigation has several important elements that must be followed to make it something that is useful.

The first element is the font size. All of the navigation choices should be the same size font. The font should be large enough to be read without having to squint or guess at what it says. If there is more than one word per button, try having the second word line up underneath the first word. This way the second element, button size will be followed. All of the navigation buttons should be the same size no matter how many words are inside of it.

The third element is to have some way to light up your navigation choices. Make sure that the navigation menu in some way highlights a selection when a visitor clicks on a choice. Make it easy for them to tell exactly what page they are on!

The fourth element is the actual navigation words. Make sure the words are terms that your visitors would use (no industry jargin). Make sure that you at least have a button for "home" and a button for "contact us". Some websites try to come up with cute names to describe things but this just wastes a visitors time because no you are making them click on the page just to figure out if this is what they are looking for or not.

The final element is the number of navigation choices that you have. Giving visitors too many choices only confuses them, not helps them. For this reason, try to stay around seven choices.

Remember that the overall goal of the navigation is to help visitors find the correct information they are looking for - fast.