Typical Navigation Mistakes
Sometimes even a nice designed website may evoke irritation and discontent and make your visitors leave the web pages after a minute of browsing efforts. One of the most common reasons why it happens concerns your online presence navigation - an important design element which can either make or break your site. In order not to experience such problems you should avoid the following typical mistakes while implementing your web pages navigation.
1. Invisible navigation
Sometimes it happens that a website doesn’t possess any navigation at all but fortunately this is a rather rare thing. However, there are cases when webmasters use invisible navigation which means that users can’t see some of the options. And if they can’t see them they consider that such options just don’t exist. That is why invisible navigation is as bad as no navigation at all and you should make its every element visible within your web pages.
You must also take into account the fact that implementing your navigation in the look of banners or placing it too close o advertising elements is not a winning solution for your website usability. It turns out that the navigation exists but the visitors can’t see it among other site elements and thus it is considered to be invisible as well.
2. Uncontrollable navigation
If you want to enhance your website with movable dynamic navigation be ready that most of your visitors just won’t accept the idea. The thing is that when the navigation elements move and change their position while users try to find them just irritates and doesn’t add to your web pages usability at all. It is better for you not to underestimate the users’ disappointment if you want to launch a successful website and thus get profit from your online business. So if you see that the visitors complain about the navigation that spins and rotates it is better for you to invent some other idea which will make your navigation more usable and will be appreciated by the customers.
3. Inconsequential navigation
Your website navigation serves a helping hand for the users making it easy to browse the website and find the information they need with the help of specially organized content sections. That is why your visitors should understand the navigation at once and make use of it without being confused by its mechanism or the way its features change. The users see one navigation structure and after some browsing there goes another scheme which make the visitors feel they are losing control over their own work.
4. Overdone navigation
If you are aimed at creating the best and most usable navigation ever don’t be carried away and be careful not to overdo it. You should be aware of the fact that every navigation technique is suitable for particular types of websites and turns out to be beneficial only when used properly. If you decided to combine all the techniques within your single site navigation don’t expect it to appear powerful, vice versa - all you will get as a result is a confusing mess. The more is not always the better, especially concerning your online presence navigation approaches. So be attentive not to exaggerate and keep within reasonable limits.
5. Made-up navigation terms
Fortunately this type of mistake has become rare nowadays but still all webmasters should know about it and avoid. The thing is there is a special, so to say traditional, terminology for navigation menu which is familiar to every user but some websites like to invent their own one confusing visitors immediately. Approaching a site with made-up navigation labels the user finds it hard to understand the meaning of the altered sections and thus can’t find the information they are looking for as they don’t know how it is called. Moreover, changed navigation terms influence search engine optimization as traditional ones already have their SEO weight unlike the unknown labels you will use within your website. So there is no sense at all in inventing things that won’t bring you neither profit nor users appreciation if there are premade techniques which have proved their usability.
Always remember that your website navigation key purpose is to help the visitors browse your web pages seeing clearly which part of the site they are and how they can get to another section if necessary. That is why you need to think over its usability first and make the visitors understand menu items and make their choices with confidence.
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