Design Web Menu 1

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Web Menu Design and Site Navigation - Part 1 of 2

Good web menu design and intuitive navigation

Web developers will tell you that web menu design and site navigation are the most important aspects of website design.

Good site navigation is absolutely vital. It ensures that the interesting content, which you have thoughtfully provided, actually gets read by your visitors. You don't want it to just languish on some inner page of your site which no-one ever visits because they don't know it's there, or they don't know how to find it.

Design your web menu to make visitors fee welcome

Part of making your visitor feel welcome, is helping her to see, at a glance, how information is laid out on your site. A well-designed web menu acts as a table of contents initially, helping her decide whether your site is what she's looking for. Later on, it helps her to find what she's looking for easily and quickly

Visitors may land on any page of your site, so they must be able to navigate from wherever they are to wherever they want to be - with a minimum of effort and clicks.

Ideally your navigation should be completely intuitive. It must work the way your visitor expects. Good navigation also includes the necessity of letting your visitor know where on your site he is right now . It's easy to get lost on a strange site!

Placement of web menu and other navigation aids

The main menu is normally the primary way of navigating between pages on your site, although it may not be the only way.

In this site for example, there are Prev and Next links at the top and bottom of each page, a Site Building Summary (under Home) from which you can navigate to any tutorial, and clicking on the page banner will always take you straight to the home page (a web tradition).

A web menu consists of a series of buttons, tabs or just plain text, laid out either horizontally or vertically. The menu should be placed close to the top of the page, above (or just below) the page banner for the horizontal type, or down the left hand side (but still towards the top) for the vertical type.

What type of web menu works best?

A horizontal web menu works fine for up to about 8 links. If you need more than that you can either choose a vertical menu or a pull-down menu, which is a series of drop-down boxes, such as we use on this site.

A variation on the pull-down menu is the pull-out menu, where the boxes are arranged vertically on the left hand side When selected, the sub menu items slide out from the box.

All types of pull-down menu have the disadvantage that you cannot see your choices without "pulling down" each selection. So in most cases, you may be better off with a vertical web menu. (Do you think this site would have been better served by a vertical menu?)

If you have more than 8 pages, you might have a horizontal menu together with a vertical menu, in which case you would normally put your more important items in the horizontal menu.

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Example of site with horizontal and vertical menus:

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Find your way around web menu design and website navigation issues