Date First Published: 6th September 2022
Topic: Web Design & Development
Subtopic: Web Design
Difficulty: EasyDifficulty Level: 3/10
Learn more about what web navigation is in this article.
Web navigation is a user interface component that allows users to quickly jump from one page to another without having to manually type the URL or search through the website. By organising pages together into a clickable list, web navigation greatly improves the usability of a website and user experience. Almost all websites have some form of navigation to allow users to explore and discover different features, pages, content, and areas of a website without difficulty. Website navigation allows users to navigate (browse) from one webpage to another webpage. Navigation menus simplify this process.
Web navigation is often used in combination with a breadcrumb trail that allows users to trace the directory path of the current page they are visiting. It displays a hierarchy of the current page in relation to the structure of the website.
Web navigation comes in three types, including:
Pages are arranged hierarchically, from the highest level (homepage) to lower levels and subcategories. This type of navigation displays the structure of a website. Sitemaps use a hierarchical navigation structure.
This is identical on every page and shows the top-level pages and sections of the website structure. It may list the main content sections and pages. A top navigation bar is an example of global website navigation.
Local website navigation is different from both hierarchical and global navigation as it refers to the interface where users can access lower levels in a structure below the main navigation pages and the term ‘local’ indicates that it is within a given category. It may also be known as subnavigation.
Also known as a navbar, a navigation is a design element of a webpage that acts as an organised list of links to other pages. Navigation bars can be at the top of the page or the side, either on the left or right side to help visitors find pages similar to what they are currently viewing.
A sitemap is an illustration, drawing, or HTML file, that presents a hierarchical view of the pages of a website used to help visitors find what they are looking for. XML sitemaps are XML files that provide search engines with a list of important pages, images, and videos of a website. This ensures that search engines can discover and crawl these pages more efficiently.
A dropdown menu, also known as a dropdown list, is a user interface element that offers a list of options that remains hidden until the user hovers over or clicks on the button or text.
A less common type of navigation menu that ‘flies out’ to either the left or right when the user hovers over or clicks on a dropdown menu element. These expand after the user hovers over or clicks each item and are useful for dropdown menus with a large number of options.
The same as anchor text. It is called an anchor because it can be used to anchor a URL to text on a webpage. When clicking on the text in a web browser, users will jump to the hyperlink.
Web navigation has been around since the introduction of the World Wide Web in 1989. Since then, web navigation has become a very important aspect of the World Wide Web and is widely used throughout it.
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