It's 2006, and we're still talking about site navigation? Yes, we are; and apparently we need all the reminders we can get, since so few sites seem to get it right. (Including, I'm well aware, CSS Insider. Don't hate; I didn't design it.)In his new A List Apart article ("Where Am I?"), Derek Powazek slaps us upside the head, again, with the cardinal rules of web site navigation. From any page on a site, a user should be able to easily answer these three questions:
- Where am I?
- Where can I go?
- Where have I been?
Derek provides visual examples of great site navigation. Put your site to the test! Do you know where you are, where you've been, and where you're going?
1. Pressumably, you guys have never come across clients who have very different ideas to yourselves? Sometimes, no matter how good the advice is, they just don't want to listen, or don't want to pay for the implementation.
So before laying the blame at the feet of the designer, you might want to take into account that in the really-real world, good design practice doesn't always trump internal politics and budgets...
Posted at 4:07AM on Aug 10th 2006 by Wayne Smallman