Operation Manual

Web Site Design and Construction 33
Navigation
Web sites present unique challenges that don’t arise in the world of
print. (When was the last time you even thought of “navigating”
through a book?) The parent/child “tree” organization, as visualized in
the WebPlus Site Structure tree, is about as intuitive as any path system
is likely to get. But with users coming in through side doors, or
following hyperlinks that leapfrog from one part of the site to another,
it’s up to you to ensure the tree doesn’t turn into a maze.
Your design should provide visual cues on each page that convey:
Which section am I in now? and Where am I in relation to the sectional
main page? Text can help. It’s common sense to use page names or
headlines that identify what’s on the page. By employing somewhat
larger headline text for Level 2 (sectional main) page titles, smaller
subheads for Level 3, and so on, you can reinforce the user’s sense of
how far removed they are from the Home page.
For communicating section identity, you can use a variety of
techniques, preferably in combination. Sections can use color-coding,
applied to headlines and/or graphic elements. You can incorporate the
section name into the composition by placing it as a text element on the
page, aligned with master page elements (as discussed later in the
chapter).
But the most effective approach, and one that deserves as much
attention as the design of your Home page, involves incorporating a
navigation bar or “navbar” that will serve as:
♦ An element of the site’s page composition
♦ A functional tool to enable jumps between sections of the site
♦ A visual reminder of where the user is
WebPlus provides a ready-made assortment of fully functional
navigation bars as theme graphics on the Studio’s Themes tab. You
simply select one from the gallery and WebPlus does the rest! Navbar
theme graphics combine buttons with popup menus to facilitate
movement between the various sections and levels of a site.
For example, here’s a navbar we selected for the site illustrated several
pages back. The buttons provide links to the Home page (Level 1) and
the section pages (Level 2). Popup menus link to child pages (Level 3
in this case).