Choosing Visual Metaphors to Support the Navigation Scheme

Creative navigation can be good thing, but it can also be bad for business. You see, web users understand how certain navigation metaphors work. Things such as underlined text links and tabs work well because everyone understands these as things you can click for more content.

However, just because lots of sites do something doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good thing. Web users have come to consider underlined text links as a convention that they can depend on to help them easily recognize what to click. Turning those underlines off not only undermines that convention, but also reduces the usability of the page, all to make the page look a little prettier. I encourage you not to fall into this trap.

Much research has been completed to study the usability of many of these visual navigation methods. Search for “usability of different navigation methods’ in Google and you will see a large number of studies to review. In the end, your site’s success can be made or rued by the choice of navigation.

To ensure as much success as possible, I suggest you review all your options and come up with a few promising concepts for navigation to present to your client and potential user. See which method works the best among a few key members of your target audience before committing yourself to one. Then you can move on to the rest of the design process with confidence.

Layout
Which comes first- the layout or the navigation? It’s the same as the old chicken and egg debate. Ultimately, you want both elements to fits together seamlessly to create an appealing, user- friendly page for your client.

A good Personal Branding Website layout addresses the user’s needs, while fulfilling the site owner’s goals. Obviously, this can be done in a wide variety of ways, so there is no one “right” way to lay out a web page. But here are a few guidelines for you to consider:
• Provide consistent navigation.
• Keep content accessible and relevant.
• Orient the user (help the user recognize what page he’s viewing within your site’s structure), usually with a relevant page title.
• Maintain an appropriate content hierarchy.

Content Hierarchy:
As has often been stated on the web, content is king. Indeed, the most important thing you can give your users is reliable, relevant, up-to-date. With this being the case, the content should be the first priority within the structure of the page and the entire site.

I remember my graphic design instructors in art school repeating this over and over again: “what’s the first thing you want viewers to notice on your page?” That should be the same question you ask yourself when you develop the content structure for Phoenix Website Design pages. To accomplish a successful content hierarchy, assign prioritization levels to each of the elements of the page, and then make sure those priorities stick when the page is designed.