experience matters

We all know how important navigation is on a website. In fact, the core to any effective site is making sure visitors can find what they are looking for, and find it quickly.

Whether they come to search for products, services, or simply contact information, the reality is that if your customers can’t find what they came for, they leave. If that happens, all your hard work to develop a website was in vain.

Over the years web developers have finessed and improved navigation systems and continue to make advancements.

We’ve been following three new navigational trends that we think will change the way the industry traditionally builds navigation systems and how users interact with them.

Here’s what’s on our radar:

Megamenus

Example: www.festoolusa.com

These are becoming more and more common. Instead of having to click several navigation items to find deeper content, Megamenus bring all the content right up front. When users click on a primary navigation item it expands in-page to show deeper content options along with corresponding visual details and information. Users are able to quickly and easily absorb the information and identify different categories without ever leaving the home page. Megamenus essentially solve the problem of limited space on the home page and provide more room for content, from information, to images, to prices.

Clickless Navigation

Example: www.dontclick.it

Amazingly, users can now navigate an entire site without ever having to click their mouse. This new and exciting way to interact with content has a major ‘cool factor,’ too. So what replaces the click? By moving your mouse over a navigation item, you trigger the next level of information to appear. It’s simple to use but a bit of a challenge to stop your natural tendency to click your mouse all the time. The one downside is that currently Clickless Navigation does not meet the W3Cs accessibility standards, which ensure websites support people with disabilities.

Visual/Spatial Navigation

Example: www.whitevoid.com/portfolio.html

Imagine a website where the primary and secondary navigation (typically found at the top and side of a site) are completely eliminated. In their place you’ll see visual icons that act as a means to navigate through products and/or experiences. Once you click an icon a new layer of icon options and deeper content appear, however, the previous icons are still exposed in the background. All the icon layers remain accessible on your screen page, making it easy to find your way around the complete site. This style of navigation is highly product-centric and quite often doesn’t need Flash. But it’s a significant break in current standards, which means it could take users a significant time to accept it.

So what do these trends mean to you?
Navigation as we know it is changing but it’s still too early to determine whether Clickless or Visual will be adopted by users to become viable, commercial options. Because both are big shifts from how average users navigate websites, it will take time for them to understand and become comfortable with these new systems. Megamenus, on the other hand, are gaining traction with businesses and consumers alike due to their simplicity and ease-of-use.