Technologies and Design Elements to Improve Website Navigation

Typically, website navigation allows the users to scroll through the pages using menu bars which are either arranged horizontally or vertically,also contains lists of things that are presented in a hierarchical way. Menu bars helps users to access the sites easily and find the required pages in a significant amount of time. Accessibility and navigation are the biggest features which forms an important part of any website design. Easily understandable icons, arranged in a good fashioned way helps many people to take the advantage of website including many elderly citizens and small children. Constructing a site using the modern technology helps to guide the visitors to make their experience more rewarding. It should always be seen that website is a place where the business starts and applying good principles while designing always helps to reaches out people.We can think of several navigation types and how they are arranged,common factors required. In general, dynamic menu bars are implemented for the sites having huge content which is to be presented in the navigation page. Special effects or feed options are also given for some sites using graphics when the users point their mouse at the navigation icons.

A lot of techniques and elements are used to design a website navigation page like HTML static, HTML dynamic, Java, VB script and Java script. The oldest form is by using the static HTML page where the page is developed and generated dynamically using web servers. While the pages can be made more creative or interactive using dynamic HTML which are made using VB script or Java script. Even though static HTML is the oldest technique used it seems to be the most effective one to design a navigation site. As the site grows there is should be constant effort to update the navigation elements to reach the pace of the growth. This requires an extra effort, but with the dynamically generated HTML the navigation elements are generated automatically based on the information present in the database.

Using the dynamic HTML with the programming code by VB script or Java script allows the web pages to send the codes directly to the user’s computers and show the results as they click on the navigation menu. The design elements which needed to be taken care for designing a navigation menu should require a visual layout which helps the users to understand that it is a button or arrow that should be clicked to further proceed to the site. It should be easy to locate and recognizable.Next comes the accessibility of the site and the features it should embed certain features to help especially abled people. Using techniques which uses high overload slows down the site pages. This should be minimized to keep the pages faster.

Scalability is one more important factor to be considered while designing whether the site requires to be growing in the future and new features are added. Some techniques require to redesign the complete site even for a few modifications, while some other require only to add few elements to embed the required additional features. Screen space should also be considered as some techniques requires the entire screen space allowing little space for the navigationmenus while some require only small screen space and providing a variety of choices to navigate. Compatibility feature should be considered as the users will be using the site with a variety of browsers and it should be taken carethat the site is adaptable and compatible with variety of browsers.

One more feature is to look for whether the navigation site is providing the feedback while pointing the browser to the specific location. This helps users to explore the site without clicking anything and to search for the exact option which they require. Such type of features which can be offered by the techniques should be selected before designing a navigation website. Site navigation helps customers to visit site more often and retain them for a longer period of time building relationships and enhancing the business of the organization. While designing a navigation site all these elements like visual, accessibility. Compatibility, scalability, space should be kept in mind to further improve the websites. Drop down menus are considered to be coolest in the navigation sites. Also avoid using the most commonly used templates to design as the users gets bored and moves on to other competitor websites.

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