The Art of Site/Nav Flow
February 13th, 2006 by Jason Roe. Post is filed under Web Design & Development.
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In my experience the natural flow of a website seems to be some times overlooked by designers, this is a common mistake that can have drastic implications. If a user can’t find relevant information on your website you are doing something wrong. This often highlighted by emails or calls that go something like this .. “I was looking on your website but I couldn’t find X or Y”….”the user is not looking hard enough” I hear you all cry!!! However why should a user have to look hard for information that should be easily available?
With all this in mind I went about constructing a basic layout. I tried two possible layouts which are fairly simple, one design with a left sided navigation and another with a right sided. Although this normally seems like a very small detail it really affects the way content is read and perceived. The final layout looks something like the image shown on the right.
The simple design means everything is only one click away from the main page. Creating a simple navigational flow helps users to navigate and find your relevant information quickly. Interlinking related pages such as linking the services page with specific products you will improve the quality of the information because its is much more acessable. This kind of infomation can often be missed by users while browsing.