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May 15, 1998 Issue > Designers

The Navigation and Usability Guide

By Jen Muehlbauer
Rank: 2

We like to think we at Web Review know the ins and outs of making Web pages work. However, since you can never be too careful, we decided to consult the experts. We read Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, Louis Rosenfeld and Peter Morville's excellent book about designing large sites. Then we took an advance peek at Jennifer Fleming's upcoming book, Web Navigation: Designing the User Experience. Finally, we hit the Web itself and checked out Jakob Nielsen's collected usability wisdom from the Alertbox column.

When we were all done reading, we figured out a set of navigation and usability rules. These rules aren't written in stone, and it's hard to follow all 12 of them at once. However, it helps to be aware of them so you can make the best design decisions for your own site.

Use Multimedia To Save Screen Space
Use pop-up menus and animation to preserve that valuable screen real estate.

Web Accessibility
Providing alternatives to your multimedia isn't just polite -- it's crucial

The Importance of Hierarchy
Build your site on a solid foundation: a well-designed hierarchy.

Help People Find Themselves
Make sure your users don't get lost in your site.

Global Navigation Systems
Global navigation is important, and it's as simple as adding a nav bar to every page.

Weigh Your Multimedia
Don't be a bandwidth hog: A multimedia optimization crash course.

Do You Need Frames? Does Anyone?
Why does everyone hate frames? Let me count the ways.

Make Nav Bars that Work
Making a good nav bar isn't as easy as you might think.

Navigation Labels
Are your icons and text as clear as they could be?

Supplemental Navigation Systems
Does your site need a table of contents? An index? A site map?

Sub-Sites
Why sub-sites are significant, and why they need their own navigation systems.

Use Embedded Links with Caution
When you bury a link in the middle of a sentence, make sure it has some context.

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