Site Navigation
It is important to have a consistent and easily followed navigation system throughout a website. We intend to include an example page for each of these options in the near future.
Navigation Techniques
Listed below are a number of techniques used to present the navigation controls, in order of increasing complexity.
- Plain text links;
- Plain Text Site Maps;
- Displaying a menu using tables with text or graphical links.
- Graphical site maps and image maps;
- Framed sites with a static menu bar (no, this site does not use frames)
- Text links formatted with style sheets (like on this site);
- Java Applet driven menus;
- Dynamic HTML drop-down menus;
- Macromedia Flash vector graphics;
Plan your Navigation
If you have a large website with multiple levels of web pages, it is a good idea to make up a plan of where each page fits in. This plan can be made in many different ways. Here are a few possibilities:
- Use index cards or pieces of paper and lay them out on a table (or on the floor if your table is too small);
- Sketch the structure on a (large) piece of paper, using a box for each page, with the title (or filename) in the box;
- Use a spreadsheet, word processor or flowcharting program to draw a diagram;
- If you are using Microsoft Front Page 2000/2002, it has a built in "Navigation" tool you can use to set up the website's structure. Some other editors have a similar option.
Structure of this site
The structure of our website is shown below. It may change over time, as we add new subjects, in which case we will update this map. We maintain this simple map in an Excel spreadsheet.
A picture like the one above can be made into an image map (method 5 above) to be used for navigation. We have implemented it here on the coloured boxes only, for demonstration purposes.
Whichever navigation method you choose, I cannot stress enough that you need to keep the navigation consistent between pages. Don't let the visitor get lost in a maze!
