Technologies and design elements to improve Web-site navigation

Sites with a large amount of content often implement dynamic menu bars that change to present the most important options in every page. Sites often use a kind of "feedback" or a special effect to allow users to know where some navigation elements are found, for example, images that change color when users move the mouse over them.

You can use a variety of technologies and design elements to implement the navigation of the website. As you consider different navigation techniques, keep the following seven basic comparison factors:

Visual

It looks and skill as an element of browsing that users are accustomed to seeing? In other words, it is a button or a menu that users will recognize as an element of displacement?

Feedback

The technique has to offer some form of feedback to indicate that a user has clicked or focused on a particular navigation element? This kind of feedback can be important because users often explore a site by moving the mouse around to see what happens. Navigation techniques that allow individual elements to respond to this global activity make navigation more likely to succeed.

Accessibility

How does the technique when a blind person trying to use the site with a web browser specially equipped? If this population is important for your company, pay particular attention to this possibility.

High

Some techniques require the browser to Web server to transfer more data to the web browser as required by other techniques. If your customers will access the site through slower connections, then using techniques with a high overhead will result in slow page loads and probably bored customers who give up and go to the competition.

Scalability

It has the technical offer special advantages to make the site more easily? Some designs of air navigation may require redesigning the entire site every time you add a new function. Others may just require some minor changes to add some new units to a menu.

Space

Some techniques, combined with the philosophy of navigation of your site, require considerable space on the screen. Other techniques can provide a wider range of choices of navigation while using less space on the screen. Keep in mind that the navigation elements should not occupy most of the screen. And 'the content that came to your customers, no menu bars.

Compatibility

How well do you want this technique within the available range of Web browsers? If one of your goals is to have your site used as many customers as possible, pay attention to the techniques that offer a wide range of compatibility, and stay away that are confined to a smaller set of browsers.

Navigation Technologies

To implement the navigation of the Web site, you can use one of the four core technologies. The oldest and simplest of these technologies is the basic, static HTML page. A step forward is the static HTML page, which is generated dynamically on the web server. Web pages can be given more interactive features with Dynamic HTML (DHTML), if programmed in VBScript or JavaScript. Java offers the opportunity to schedule a complete, standalone application to be used as an aid to navigation.

Static HTML

Static HTML links are the simplest and oldest form of navigation on the web. May be less exciting than their dynamic counterparts, but they remain one of the most effective techniques for browsing the web.

Dynamically generated static HTML

If the site is constantly evolving and growing, static HTML, require a constant effort to keep the navigation elements in line with the growth of the site. A common solution to this problem was to create a dynamic navigation elements, when the page is displayed. When using the DHTML, it is not necessary to manually update the information as the site grows, it generates an automated navigation elements, if necessary, based on information in a database.

VBScript, JavaScript and Dynamic HTML

DHTML is a technology that lets you embed programming code in Web pages that are sent to users' computers. DHTML code actually runs inside the Web browser users, and can change the look and content of the Web page in response to user actions on the page.

In Scope

You can use a variety of technologies and design elements to implement the navigation of the website. As you consider different navigation techniques, keep these seven basic comparison factors in mind. Visitors are becoming rare and rare in this competitive world of electronic commerce. Keep those who visit your site for a longer period, in order to convert them as customers. Techniques for site navigation will help to do so .......