Navigation: Which one do I use and where in the world do I start?Research
shows that confusing navigation is the number one way to lose
customers. If people have a hard time finding their way around your
website, they're just going to give up and leave. And when you have
great products that really sell themselves like Brainwaves does, you
don't want your navigation to get in the way of a sale. When
you enter on the Brainwaves homepage, there are three different ways to
navigate the site. There is a global horizontal bar organized by age
group. There's a global vertical bar that's not particularly organized
at all and mixes functional (shop by price, age) with topical. And
there's another featured section in the middle that is also organized
by topic, some of which are in the left sidebar and some that aren't.
The housekeeping links such as about us and contact are buried in the
footer. While they need to be there, they also need to be more
prominent "above the fold" (visible without having to scroll).With
the variety of toys for sale on Brainwaves, I like the idea of having
two sets of navigation: one for age and one for toy category. It seems
sensible that people would use one of those two systems to browse.
However, they should be kept entirely separate from each other. Research
also shows that users scan web pages, and won't bother to look at lists
with more than 5-7 links. If you have more than that, break them up
into categories and subcategories that are logical and easy to scan. Always
keep your customers in mind; organize your navigation in a way that
makes sense to them, call each link what they would call it
("educational toys" takes visitors to the home page, so call it
"home"!), and make it easy to scan and browse. If you aren't sure if
your organization or labeling (words in the links) make sense to your
customers, test it! Find a friend who is in your target market and ask
his/her opinion.
