Designing Web Navigation, Continued

Tip #4: Use Shortcuts

Once you've taken the time to consider the structure of the site as a whole, spend some time thinking about shortcuts through the structure. On this site, for example, we offer content teasers on the front door. We also offer rotating tips at the top of every page. These shortcuts help to provide quick and easy access to content. Some of the most common shortcuts are search features, site maps, tables of contents, and pulldown menus for content sections.

The basic idea behind shortcuts is to get people to information rapidly and with ease. Design your shortcuts with this in mind. There are many examples of search screens that are unusable because of a confusing array of options, site maps that take many minutes to load, or tables of contents that require endless laborious scrolling. Shortcuts should by nature be streamlined—they should be brief, fast, and clear. They should also be convenient and close at hand. For the more useful shortcuts (such as searchability), you might consider providing a link on every page of your site to make the most of the flexibility they can offer.

A word on pulldowns: at the moment, pulldown menus are being seriously overused. The most common pulldown blooper is having multiple warring pulldown menus on one screen. Within the context of a form, multiple pulldowns are fairly clear. As a navigation technique, multiple pulldowns leave something to be desired. Because pulldowns can't easily show a site's content relationships (and are often used as a dumping ground for random content pieces), you are better off using one focused pulldown menu than several competing ones. It's also important to know that pulldowns generally are risky when used as a site's primary navigation scheme, since many novice users don't realize there are other options available under the "Select" menu.

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