When it comes to creating a website that really stands out,you might be tempted to try out some unusual methods. After all,a website that looks just like all the others is not going to be memorable or impressive. But, you should exercise caution when taking a leap into the deep end, to swim in unchartered territory. Most of the same old design principles you see online, are tried and tested, and proven to get results. And this is especially true of the navigation options. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t experiment at all. Here at Pumpkin Web Design Manchester, we are Manchester’s leading web design professionals. And we work with companies and business across the region, to provide top quality web solutions,including stunning web design, and web marketing. As a result, we have produced this guide to the website navigation options to avoid.
Listing all pages
If you really want your users to hate you, go right ahead and list all the pages on your website, as one long menu option. But it’s not a tactic that is likely to boost your sales. In fact, navigation menus with too many choices are confusing, distracting and challenging for users. Consumers expect to find the information they need within two clicks. Any more than that, and you are asking for an increase in bounce rate.
Instead, you could put your website pages into categories and use a sub menu option to open the categorised pages. Some common ones include:
- About- this category will include the “About Us” page, and any other information you are sharing about your company, such as “About (Company Name)” or company policies
- Products- A category for your product pages slit into further sub-categories if necessary. If you don’t sell products, this structure can suit a services option.
Alternatively,you could use a scrolling website design, or a sidebar menu option to connect pages.
No navigation bar
Some websites that are around 4/5 pages only, can get away with removing the navigation option completely. Instead, the website uses a series of bookmarks to open new pages when the user scrolls down, or across. This can be a very stylish way to design a website, and when paired with professional imagery, and great typography, can be stunning.
However, if you use this navigation option with a website with more than 4 or 5 pages, you could be making a big mistake. If you’re website is large, with a lot of information, users will need a simple way to get to the information they need. A scrolling website will only lead to users loading web pages they dont need, and getting frustrated with the system.
In addition, this scrolling system, with no navigation bar, relies on the user actually wanting to scroll. That’s a lot to leave up to the user when you are trying to run a business and boost sales. As a result, getting rid of the navigation bar completely, for large company websites, is one of the website navigation options to avoid.
Hamburger menus
Hamburger menus are a contentious issue among web designers for a variety of reasons. But the general consensus is that these can be very effective for responsive web design on a small screen, such as a mobile phone. This is because hiding the navigation bar behind a hamburger menu can reduce the amount of space it takes up on a small screen. However, on a desktop website, putting the navigation menu beneath a hamburger icon simply increases the number of clicks a user has to make to get what they want from the website. And this can actually be a negative user experience. As a result, you might like to reconsider the hamburger menu for your desktop website.
For more information or advice about the website navigation options to avoid, get in touch with the professionals today, here at Pumpkin Web Design Manchester.