Know anything about navigation?
Would you think of buying a boat, driving it into unknown waters, moving between difficult rocks, exploring treacherous harbors without acquiring some navigation skills? I don’t think so.
So, translate that logical thinking to your website.
A website with good navigation, helps your business be successful. A successful business enables you to buy that boat that you need good navigational skills for.
But, I’m digressing……
You don’t actually “drive” your website, but your website drives your business, so the navigation system should be effective in taking your visitors clearly and easily through all of your site. A bit like a map, it gives the required information in a simple and constructive way .
What you want in a website with good navigation, is a layout with an intentional flow throughout, so that your visitors are less likely to jump from page to page but will focus on a path of your design. When good website navigation is implemented, visitors will stay and have a good experience. This, in turn, leads to more visitors and increased business.
Much research has been done on how how people read and absorb web information. One of the studies concluded that users read in an F-Pattern.
The F-Pattern is the way our eyes move when we read content online. Eyes move at outstanding speed across a website’s copy and other visuals, scanning the page in this order:
First, the eye scans across the top of the page to read important headlines.
Second, down the left side of the page to view numerals or bullet points.
Lastly, across the page again to read bolded text or sub headlines.
With this knowledge, your web pages can be designed to place important elements exactly where visitors will focus on them and then act on them.
Interested in the F-Pattern article from the Nielsen Norman Group? Read it here. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/f-shaped-pattern-reading-web-content/