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10. Navigation

If an article is also meant to be used for reference, where a reader may want to jump to specific information, navigation becomes very important.

The main devices for navigation are:

  1. a.Menus or navigation bars
  2. b.Cards or galleries
  3. c.Search facility.

Menus and navigation bars are like the table of contents in a book, and so provide a basic way of getting to major parts of a site.

Top-down navigation needs to be able to be used very quickly, so that the reader doesn't get distracted from what they were trying to find. That is facilitated by making the text of each option as short as possible. Being short enables almost subconscious reading of the options in one go, rather than sequentially reading each. To verify, think of a subtopic, and try the glimpse test. The required option should be quickly recognised.

However, the text should not be so short that it is no longer indicative of what a reader can expect to find when they click on it. Navigation is still communication, and the words should not be obscure, which means that if shortening, retain the words that most people recognise, rather than what you may prefer.

A couple of quick selections from two levels of a few options each may be a lot faster than selecting from one large menu/bar. Looking at too many options at once may mean a reader will have to think too much about the differences between then all, rather than make a quick selection from a few, two times in a row.

Cards and galleries

Not all people make choices based solely upon words, and so navigation alternatives like cards have been developed.

Cards are a modern navigation device better suited to those who are more visually driven. The picture needs to be truly suggestive of the content, rather than decoration. Put the picture as an aside on the target page to help the reader know they are at the right page.

However, cards still require concise text to help people make quick decisions, so provide a short heading, rather than rely upon them reading any text below the image, which should only be considered as an option for people to read if they need further evidence of where selecting the card will take them.

A variant of cards is having a mini-glossary-like listing with the same information. The advantage is that it is less bulky in appearance so it allows more entries in the same space.

Many sites provide a gallery of images for those who might want to see what a person or topic is about. However, a gallery can be a useful navigation device if each image is linked to an article that provides depth or background. Consider a gallery an alternative visual index into a site's content, complimenting the site's main top-down logical navigation.

Search is like an index at the back of a reference book, providing access to content at a more granular level than a book's main table of contents, which corresponds to a site's main menu or navigation bar.

Of course, we now rely upon search providers like Google to take care of searching the internet as a whole. This has resulted in search engine optimsation (SEO) being heavily promoted as a means of gaining site visibility. One can provide a basic search facility for a site by providing a simple web form that includes a couple of hidden fields that tell the chosen search engine to only provide results for the site.

However, search providers do not list all pages in a site, even if the pages have been available for years. You can help by ensuring that you cross-link between as many of your pages as possible, as that indicates that your site is well-integrated, and that all pages are important. However, if all content must be available from the search, a dedicated search facility must be provided, which also has the advantage of no advertising that might take visitors away from the site.

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