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By: Ananth Prasath Posted: 2012-05-03 02:25:06 |
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One of the most frustrating experiences you can have on a Web site is being unable to figure out where to go or where you are. I’d like to think that for most Web designers, navigation is a concept we’ve managed to master, but I still find some pretty bad examples out there. There are two aspects of navigation to keep in mind:Navigation — where can you go?
There are a few commonsense rules to remember here. Buttons to travel around a site should be easy to find – towards the top of the page and easy to identify. They should look like navigation buttons and be well described. The text of a button should be pretty clear as to where it’s taking you. Aside from the common sense, it’s also important to make navigation usable. For example, if you have a rollover sub-menu, ensuring a person can get to the sub-menu items without losing the rollover is important. Similarly changing the color or image on rollover is excellent feedback for a user.Orientation — Where are you now? There are lots of ways you can orient a user so there is no excuse not to. In small sites, it might be just a matter of a big heading or a ‘down’ version of the appropriate button in your menu. In a larger site, you might make use of bread crumb trails, sub-headings and a site map for the truly lost.Design to Build Life has gotten a lot easier since Web designers transitioned to CSS layouts, but even now it’s still important to think about how you are going to build a site when you’re still in Photoshop. Consider things like:Can it actually be done? You might have picked an amazing font for your body copy, but is it actually a standard HTML font? You might have a design that looks beautiful but is 1100px wide and will result in a horizontal scroller for the majority of users. It’s important to know what can and can’t be done, which is why I believe all Web designers should also build sites, at least sometimes.What happens when a screen is resizes? Do you need repeating backgrounds? How will they work? Is the design centered or left-aligned? Are you doing anything that is technically difficult? Even with CSS positioning, some things like vertical alignment are still a bit painful and sometimes best avoided. Could small changes in your design greatly simplify how you build it? Sometimes moving an object around in a design can make a big difference in how you have to code your CSS later. In particular, when elements of a design cross over each other, it adds a little complexity to the build. So if your design has, said three elements and each element is completely separate from each other, it would be really easy to build. On the other hand if all three overlap each other, it might still be easy, but will probably be a bit more complicated. You should find a balance between what looks good and small changes that can simplify your build Web Designing Companies.For large sites, particularly, can you simplify things? There was a time when I used to make image buttons for my sites. So if there was a download button, for example, I would make a little download image. In the last year or so, I’ve switched to using CSS to make my buttons and have never looked back. Sure, it means my buttons don’t always have the flexibility I might wish for, but the savings in build time from not having to make dozens of little button images are huge. For information’s on Website Design Company please click on Web Design Company in Bangalore. |
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