Five Common Website Navigation Styles
January 23rd, 2008 | Posted in Navigation/Menu |
Here we go again, a list of navigation styles. Navigation is one of the most important elements on a website. If it’s not right all the effort that you put into the site may be worthless. So here’s five major styles that I came up with. I know there are many more out there but these are the most common ones that I see.
One
The source site for this is: http://www.trustile.com
An example of a simple graphic based hover style navigation. It is simple to impliment and is easy to use. Got to remember that most times simple is best - KISS (I won’t even go into it) 
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Two
The source site for this is: http://www.amazon.com
We’ve looked at this one several days ago in the Recipe For Effective Navigation post and again this one made the list. It is complicated to build but once done, it’s worth the effort. It eliminates two clicks from the visitor’s search which raises the conversion rate.
Three
http://www.boite-a-musique.org
A text based navigation is the simplest one on the list but on the effectivness scale it may or mey not be better then the image based navigation. Again the KISS element, simplicity works well.
Four
The source site for this is: http://www.lexus.com
Now we’re getting into some serious, multi-function navigation. Here, we’re looking at a Lexus website’s navigation bar. Each “section” has multiple hot areas that trigger diferent drop down menus, I guess in most cases it’s not a menu that drops down but a sort of a mini web page. Personally I think I’d stear away from navigation like this.
Five
The source site for this is: http://www.32round.com
Ok, this one may not look cool or impressive (I am talking about the navigation) but once you click one of the buttons it’ll get your attention. Another way of getting your visitor’s attention I guess. I like the site, nice scrolling effect on it too.
I’d love to hear some of your opinions on these.
