{"id":513,"date":"2010-11-02T09:00:52","date_gmt":"2010-11-02T17:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.numinix.com\/blog\/?p=513"},"modified":"2010-11-01T17:17:19","modified_gmt":"2010-11-02T01:17:19","slug":"improving-website-navigation-for-your-users","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.numinix.com\/blog\/improving-website-navigation-for-your-users\/","title":{"rendered":"Improving Website Navigation for Your Users"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If you want your users to stay on your website longer and keep coming back,\u00a0 your site needs to be as simple as possible for them to use.\u00a0 Improving website navigation for your users is a simple matter of adding a few tools to help them on their way. Though there are many angles to look at navigational improvement from, we will concentrate on menus, browsing\/search capabilities, and user&#8217;s expectations.\u00a0 Just mastering these three elements will give your users a much more pleasant experience.<\/p>\n<h2>Menus<\/h2>\n<p>The first thing you want to look at is your navigational menus.\u00a0 Here are a few handy tips:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Pay attention to how your menus are worded.\u00a0 Leave out the industry terms, and use words you are sure your visitors will understand.<\/li>\n<li>Less is more.\u00a0 You don&#8217;t need every major section of your site indexed in your navigation menu.\u00a0 Research proves that if you give the customer too many choices, they will have difficulty choosing anything.<\/li>\n<li>Use drop-down menus.\u00a0 This allows your users to explore your site easily without clicking on anything.\u00a0 vertical drop-downs are the best for this.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Browsing and Searching<\/h2>\n<p>Improving this area is extremely important for e-commerce sites.\u00a0 Make sure that your users can drill down to sub-categories.\u00a0 You should also make it possible for them to search by price, top-sellers, and definitely by top customer review ratings; users like to browse the most popular products.\u00a0 You should also include a search box.\u00a0 This will give your users the ability to find exactly what they want quickly and save them a ton of frustration.<\/p>\n<h2>What Users Expect<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Links &#8211;<\/strong> They should be underlined, or have a standard color, like blue.\u00a0 Try not to use underlines (or the particular shade of blue you choose) anywhere else on your website to avoid confusion.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Logos &#8211; <\/strong>Usually at the top of the page.\u00a0 Most users now expect them to contain a link back to the homepage.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Search Boxes &#8211; <\/strong>These are almost always in the upper right-hand side of every page on the site.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Log-in\/Out &#8211; <\/strong>These should be clearly visible on the page.\u00a0 Also, make sure it is in the same place on every page.\u00a0 This is actually a good idea for all important elements of your page.<\/p>\n<p>So now you have a few easy ways to make your website more user-friendly.\u00a0 One final thought:\u00a0 Make it clear, make it simple, and make it consistent!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you want your users to stay on your website longer and keep coming back,\u00a0 your site needs to be as simple as possible for them to use.\u00a0 Improving website navigation for your users is a simple matter of adding a few tools to help them on their way. Though there are many angles to&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[217,127,219,216,218],"class_list":["post-513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-usability","tag-drop-down-menus","tag-links","tag-navigation","tag-navigational-menus","tag-search-boxes"],"modified_by":"Jeff Lew","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.numinix.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.numinix.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.numinix.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.numinix.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/54"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.numinix.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.numinix.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.numinix.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.numinix.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.numinix.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}