Web site design projects combine several aspects that are necessary for it to attract traffic. Some of you might go on to add that elements like content, color scheme, graphics & typography are absolutely essential for an effective web designing work & you are certainly right, but ignoring navigation in your list of essentials is a sin. Without a good navigation experience visitors could face a difficult time finding his way around, leading to frustration and eventually increasing the possibility that your customer would never want to come back again.
Conclusion: A good navigable interface is one of the most important design elements, and everything else in comparison is secondary.
Consistent navigation is all about giving your visitors a great experience. It includes:
Accessibility
Usability
Functionality
Implementing the above mentioned parameters on your web site design projects is not difficult. Follow some general rules of thumb and your website navigation will be sorted.
Easy to Find: The visitors to your web page are restless and as a designer, you must make sure that your customers don't get stuck at one place. Make navigation the soul of your web designing work. It must be the easiest thing to find on a web page.
Consistency: The location of navigation bars must appear on the same location at every page and should have the identical color, style etc. or else user could easily get frustrated.
Provide Search: Search tools should be provided to the visitors for assistance and to find related solutions.
Use Text. Text for navigation is generally preferred. But if you want to use images make sure that you use text to make causal connection with it.
Less is More: Using too many navigation options will ruin your overall design and could also frustrate the user with the choices. Using drop down menus is an excellent way to get rid of navigation clutter.