How
the user navigates around your web site can make or
break your site. If the site is too difficult to navigate
around the user is not going to enjoy the time spent
on your site and may leave or not return again.
With this in mind you need to make your navigation controls
as obvious and simple as possible.
Keep the navigation controls consecutive. It's no good
changing the colour or the place of your navigation
controls, as this will only confuse the user. Using
frames for your site may help with this.
There are different ways you can create navigational
controls for your web site and they are: -
- Text
- Images
Text
This is the simplest way to link pages on your site.
Although not as attractive as graphical navigational
controls you are at least guaranteed fast downloading
times and can be viewed in all web browsers.
Images
Using images to make navigation buttons to link the
various pages on your site together can really make
a site, but not everyone, such as the visually impaired
and browsers that don't display images, will be able
to view the buttons. To overcome this problem you can
use the HTML ALT tag, which will display a text alternative
to your button images.
With images you can use icons or symbols to represent
where the link will lead. Again here you must be careful,
as what means a mailbox in your country may have no
meaning to people from other countries.
It maybe good to use text links with your icons or symbols,
that way you get the best of both worlds.
