Navigation Know-how

Let's face it - finding your way around in some web sites can be down right annoying - and there is NO excuse for pages that are "dead ends" with no way out except your browser's "Back" button!  Every page on a site should have a way out, and aids to navigation (can you say "Menu"?) should be easy to find and in the same place on every page (the "theme" thing again...).  

And while we're talking about "dead ends" let's not forget "dead links".  If you put external links on your pages for goodness sake check them regularly to make sure they still lead somewhere besides "404 File Not Found"...

You want your visitors to enjoy the time they spend on your site, and one of the best ways to make their experience enjoyable is to build the sort of site where people can easily see the different things on offer and easily get to and from each of your pages.

For straight forward easy to understand ease of navigation I love "framed layout" pages  (not to mention faster load times) - I re-wrote Pandora's Box in a framed layout once I discovered the "magic of frames" and I am delighted with the results.

Another great trick that I use a lot is to open in new windows for -"off-shoot pages", especially if the page has links to several other pages.  It's so easy to do, and once your visitor has seen what is on that page he/she needs only to close the window to be right back at the starting point, ready to read on and go to the next link.  

This is especially important when the link is "external" to your site - you really want to KEEP that visitor on your site, not have them go off somewhere else and forget to come back!  So keep them - open those links in a new window, when they're finished checking out the link they can just close the window and be right back on your site, ready to browse some more...

Whatever page of your site you are on there should ALWAYS be a clear and simple way of getting to the rest of your pages - DON'T build a labyrinth.  Your visitors can't drop a trail of breadcrumbs to help them find their way back, but they can easily click on to another site!

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