Design your way

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Many times, websites are the only connection between a company or a product and the client. This puts tremendous pressure on web designers to create both eye-catching and easy to navigate sites to keep the customers returning.

With no set guidelines and web design programs allowing free form construction, site navigation can be as simple as the designer wants it to be, but with the ‘eye-catching’ requirement, complexity is the status quo.

Creating an effective navigation system, by ensuring usability, is a critical part of web design and can be the linchpin of a website’s success. Not only should site navigation be intuitive and easy to maneuver for the end-user, the ability to find specific information should be quickly accessible.

Conventional design places navigation bars, utilizing plain text, either across the top or side of a page; this style makes navigation selections clearly visible without detracting from the eye-catching main section. While some designs have navigation controls in other locations, it can be risky to deviate from the norm so you do not confuse visitors or lose potential customers and sales.

However, when dealing with design, everyone wants to put their own mark on the world and make creativity as important as usability. This is why you get to see out of the box navigation on some sites. It is true that nowadays designers tend to have a minimalist navigation, but there are still websites which have unique navigation and which can be an inspiration for others.