How to Improve Website Navigation and Usability
Usability is one of those fuzzy areas that's difficult to assess, but which can have a significant influence on the success of your site. If people find it difficult to use, they'll simply go elsewhere and never return.
The correct approach to use depends entirely on the nature of your site, so it's impossible to give specific rules or checklists (which is what makes usability fuzzy). However, there are some general guidelines that you should consider:
Do all of the pages in your site have a consistent look and feel?
They should all have the same basic structure, the same logo/banner identifying the site, the content in the same part of the page, and the approach to menus and navigation. You might have different items on a menu depending on the section you're in, but they should look and feel similar.
Do the pages on your site have a clear, logical hierarchy (i.e. are they grouped into meaningful sections and subsections)?
This is the starting point for defining a good menu structure. You can't begin to build menus which allow quick and easy access to your pages unless you've first grouped those pages in some way.
Are the items listed on the menus meaningful and intuitive?
Sometimes, in order to save space, it's tempting to reduce the text for each menu item to the bare minimum, but this can result in the purpose of each menu item becoming unclear, in which case people won't click on it. Make sure that you use enough text to clearly identify the purpose of each section in the menu.
Are your menus too complex?
More sophisticated multi-level, collapsible and pop-up menus are great for more expert users, but might put off those who are less experienced. Think about the level of expertise that a typical user of your site would have, and design with that type of person in mind.
How many clicks are required for a person to get to the page they're looking for?
If you can reduce the number, they're more likely to get there, and more likely to return in future.
Do all of your pages provide a link to your home page?
If you get a visitor to your site, you want to make it easy for them to navigate around it. A key part of this is that they should be able to return to the top-level site with a single click, so that they can continue browsing through other sections.
Is every page on your site reachable via a link from at least one other page?
If not, then the only way people will find it is if they already know it's there. Even a search engine won't pick it up unless there's a link to it from somewhere.
If you have a large site, do you provide a sitemap to help people find what they're looking for?
The term sitemap can be used to refer to two slightly different things – an XML listing of the pages in your site to help search engines index it correctly, or a web page providing links to other key pages in your site to help users find what they're looking for. In this context, we're referring to the second usage of the term.
Do you provide a search facility?
Rather than forcing users to navigate through a series of menus, providing a search box which will take someone directly to the required page is a useful way to improve your site's usability. You can do this easily by adding a Custom Search Engine from Google.
The key to improving your site's usability is to try to view it through an average visitor's eyes. Of course everything makes sense to you, because you created it, and therefore know exactly where every page is located. But does it make sense to somebody who doesn't have your inside knowledge?
A good way to determine this is to ask some independent people to try out your site. You should choose people who haven't seen it before, have the same level of computer expertise as you would expect of your typical users, and most importantly of all, people who will tell you the truth and not just say what they think you want to hear.
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