Help Web Site Guests Easily Navigate Your Site

There’s a handy article at A List Apart, a Web site/e-zine for Web designers, called “Where Am I,” which gives some good tips on creating navigational menus and links …

Here are three questions the author gives that sites must answer in order for their guests to navigate around a site:

1. Where am I? (Present)
2. Where can I go? (Future)
3. Where have I been? (Past)

He also gives three guidelines for designing your site’s navigational pathway:

  • Don’t link to the page you’re on (I’m guilty of this one a lot)
  • Show where you are (Tell the guest where they are in the site — kind of like a “You Are Here” star on a mall map)
  • Think before you link

    Here are some good quotes from the story:

    “Good navigation tells a story, and good stories have a beginning, middle, and end.”

    “When people use your site, they’re like tourists in a foreign city. If you want them to have a good time, make sure they can get where they want to go and know where they are when they’re there.”

    Something I learned the hard way recently: As I was working to finalize my church’s Web site redesign — I mean, just at that point where we see the end in sight and are close to going “live” — I make a terrible realization — we didn’t include an obvious link from the inside pages BACK to the Home page. In other words, we left the “Home” page link off.

    Navigation is important. When you think you’ve got your content and sections figured out … walk through the process of a guest visiting your site. Give them obvious breadcrumbs to find their way around.

    ***

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    August 13, 2006 · Filed Under Church Marketing

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