Site Navigation: Getting from Here to There

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In the real world we have lots of tools to help us get from here to there - maps, street signs, global positioning systems, address books and other helpful tools make navigation easy. However, that's not always true in the virtual world of the W3. Getting from Point A to Point B on your web website may not be as easy as you think.

What Is Site Navigation?

In fact, it is the digital equivalent of the maps, street signs and other means we employ in the real world to move about. And, it is a critical, often overlooked, aspect of website design. The ability of website visitors to get from here to there on any website is a key component to website success, which may explain why 94% of all web websites crash and burn. People can't find what they're looking for!

A well-considered website navigation system has an effect on everything from SEO to conversion rate to W3C compliance - all important to long-term website success.

Site Navigation Road Signs

Most people (including website designers) think of website navigation as the road signs used to direct website visitors to the specific information they're looking for - whether it's a particular product, service or fact.

To direct visitors, designers employ a number of devices including a navigation bar (usually at the top of the page), flyout and dropdown menus, buttons, embedded text links, zone page links, tabs and other tools that help visitors move about a website.

However, even the best-designed websites may have navigation problems that go undetected until a metrics analysis of website traffic is undertaken. How do visitors find the website? How many pages do they view? How long do they stick around? Do they perform the website's most desired action (MDA)? All of these questions are tied to the effectiveness of a website's navigation and the visitor's ability to move about without a lot of backtracking and mis-clicks.

In one case, a disproportionate number of visitors put something in their shopping carts but failed to reach the checkout to actually make the purchase. After an analysis of website activity was undertaken, it was determined that the link to the check-out wasn't displayed prominently enough on each products page. With a little redesign, the website saw a substantial increase in conversion rate - and a lot fewer half-full shopping carts that never reached the checkout.

When Is Too Much Too Much?

Can there ever be too many website navigation markers? You bet, and it happens to even the best of them.

Amazon.com was the first to employ the tab system of navigation, using a row of tabs across the top of the housepage to direct visitors to books, CDs and other items sold by this on-line behemoth retailer. And it worked well in the beginning, but that was therefore Amazon only sold a few types of products.

As the company additional more products to its offerings, each required a new tab at the top of the house page. So, Amazon kept adding more and more tabs until, in 2000, there were 14 different tabs in two rows running across the top of the screen. It was confusing to visitors who were looking at a very cluttered house page - even by Amazon standards.

Since the tab disaster, the company has gone to dropdown menus and flyouts to direct visitors, eliminating the number of "street signs" that appeared on the Amazon housepage.

It is, indeed, possible to provide too much navigation information, which is just as bad as too little direction.

The Basic Principle of Site Navigation

Enough but not too much.

Sounds simple, but in fact, it's difficult to determine when and where navigation tools should appear. In recent years, the top website design firms have turned to contextual website navigation to assist (and even encourage) visitors to complete the website's MDA.

Contextual navigation provides only that information the visitor needs or wants from that location within the website and at that time. So, instead of having 14 tabs, websites employ series of dropdown, flyout and image menus that appear within the context of the visitor's location within the website and the navigation information requested by the visitor.

Think of it this way. If someone asked you for directions to a local restaurant, you wouldn't start by telling them to first go to a country, a province or state, a town, a street and then a street address. Instead, you'd provide directions based on the context of the lost individual - where s/he is now and where s/he wants to go. You don't need a world atlas to find directions to a local eatery.

Site navigation should be as simple as possible while, simultaneously, providing directions required by visitors. And that takes planning - lots of it.

SNO - "Site Navigation Optimization"

The days of "one-size-fits-all" website navigation are long gone. Visitors expect directions to be clear and concise. Button links must be clearly labeled. The visitor should be able to get to the house page from anywhere on the website - no backtracking, please. An easily accessible, linked website map should be available from any page within the website. Anything less and the website's conversion rate is going to suffer.

Now, the chances of getting your website's navigation optimized as soon as you launch are small, though not impossible. The more likely scenario is to launch, test, measure and refine - aka tweaking.

There are numerous applications that will compile and analyze the activity of your website visitors. By adding a link here and re-labeling a button there, you'll gradually improve the website's navigation, which in turn, will improve the website's conversion rate.

Site success doesn't just happen. It requires good planning, a good business model and effective website navigation that points visitors to the website's MDA. Your website may be optimized for search engines, but if you haven't taken the time to perform SNO - website navigation optimization - you haven't realized the full potential of the pixels you have on the W3.

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