If you put a notebook at your desk and walk away from it, you expect it to be in the same place when you return. When you walk into your living room, you expect your sofa to be in the same place it was last time. Likewise, when we visit a website, we expect that certain elements, such as a navigation bar, will be consistent across different sites.According to Jakob's law:Users spend most of their time on other sites. This means that users prefer your site to work the same as any other site they are already familiar with.If a user can't find what they're looking for due to cluttered or unclear navigation, no matter how "pretty" or how innovative a site is, you need a new solution. Users who can't find what they need will quickly leave your site to find a more user-friendly alternative. A well-designed navigation bar helps both new and old users understand where they are on your site and how to get to where they need to be quickly and easily.According to CrazyEgg:The navigation structure of a site should allow a user to find what they need in three clicks.At Seer, when we do UX audits, we constantly report crowded navigation bars - they create friction and confusion for the user. However, if you have a ton of content, that doesn't necessarily mean you need fewer pages on your site.If you have dozens of pages, they should be sorted and prioritized based on Magical Number Seven,
Plus, or Minus Two. Short-term memory can hold about seven items at a time, plus or minus two. So if a user hovers over a drop-down list in your navigation with a list of 15 items, you are oversaturating them with content they are probably not looking for, and they will leave your site to serve their needs elsewhere.Good navigation Egypt Phone Numbers List should:Increase the number of clicks per page listedIncrease organic trafficGive more credibility to your siteHow can you make sure you are accomplishing all three? Read on!Types of navigationWhile a navigation bar covers a variety of shapes and sizes, in order to maintain consistency for the user, we suggest using a common navigation structure, or a combination of structures, for your site.Top / Main Header: This format is ideal for main navigation, as users will look here intuitively first.images 03Sub-navigation: This is usually a secondary list of links below the primary navigation. Often times, the sub-nav is made to appear less prominent than the main navigation to avoid overwhelming the user.images 01Side Navigation: This is a vertical structure that spans the left or right side of your page and supports scrolling. Side navs are often present on mobile sites, but can also be used in conjunction with primary desktop navigation.picture 05Breadcrumbs:
often used in sites organized in a hierarchical manner, these are simple textual links generally separated by the symbol "greater than" (>) or "slash" (/) image 04These navigation structures can be used in conjunction (it is recommended that you use no more than three levels of navigation) for content-rich sites, since you maintain a structural hierarchy and keep visual clutter to a minimum.Mobile navigation3.7 billion people access the internet through a mobile device, so if your site isn't optimized for mobile users, you're missing out on a large chunk of your audience.While hidden or drop-down menus can almost halve desktop discovery rates, mobile browsing is usually accessed through the hamburger menu, as many mobile screens are only 720-828 pixels wide in portrait mode.image 02Hamburger menu on mobile (left), extended burger menu on mobile (right) Navigation labels should be clear and easy to read, and should be large enough to be easily typed (for more on link and button sizes, see the UX Checklist Series: Button Design).Structure your navigationThe goal is always to find the right balance between too complicated and too simplistic. How can this be accomplished? For starters, your navigation should be intentionally designed - everything but the sink