Discussion on:

Determine the best elements for Web site navigation

Another negative for the 'drop-down hover' navigation method is that it is extremely unlikely to be accessible to users of alternative browsing devices (e.g., blind users with voice browsers). The article does mention that "some mouse dexterity" is required, and that hints at the important fact that drop-down DHTML menus will frustrate (at best) or exclude (at worst) many elderly users and users with restricted mobility.

The most accessible navigation is going to be plain text, followed by images with proper ALT text.

Keeping everything simple should lead to less frustration on the end user's part. For instance, a lot of people use WebTV, and most sites are never tested on this platform. There is an emulator for download from Microsoft.

Unfortunately, I think too many web designers don't consider some of these issues, either because they don't know about them, or there isn't enough time to implement them.

I don't want to come off sounding too hard here, but in all honesty there are a lot more "navigation" elements to consider for "web site navigation" than the ones being mentioned here.

How about a basic hyperlink? Isn't clicking on this another way that a user navigates thru a web site? Consider some others...

1. Using the Enter/Return key to submit info.
2. Using the scroll bars on the browser to "navigate" thru information.
3. Image maps, rollovers, popups, redirects.

These are all navigation elements. Now if the topic were titled something more like "Navigation Features to consider in Your Page Layout Design" then I think the article should also address elements like how a reader eye naturally moves left to right, top to bottom and how to best address navigation in your page layout based on this.

If I were the editor, I would have called for a rewrite that would concentrate more on these types of elements.

There are plenty of issues that could have been considered for this article, but the format doesn't allow for consideration of all of them in one article.

Underlying all of the page navigation elements I described are hyperlinks, of course, butI don't think that I needed to cover the basics of creating links here. I'm not sure what specifically you were looking for in terms of a discussion of image maps or hyper links, or scroll bars.

Another topic that I could have discussed is the ability for Mozilla (and other browsers) to display the structural navigation that is described with LINK elements in the HEAD tag.

If you'd like more information on this topic, I recommend reading Homepage Usability: 50 Websites Deconstructed by Jakob Nielsen and Marie Tahir.

"If you'd like more information on this topic, I recommend reading Homepage Usability: 50 Websites Deconstructed by Jakob Nielsen and Marie Tahir."

Well, I appreciate the suggestion, but your recomendation that I need more insight into usability is a little presumptuous.

My only point was that the title of your article was "Determine the best elements for Web site navigation..." It wasn't "Determine the best methods for site navigation" or "Determine the best paradigm for site navigation"It was "Determine the best elements...".

Image maps, hyperlinks, scroll bars and etc are all elements of navigation. That's why I mentioned them. The biggest issue with user interface design isn't the element itself, but rather how the user interacts or doesn't interact with that element.

For example, not all users know how to use a search box to perform a successful search, that's why they end up "browsing" for their information. These are the types of "elements" and issues that should be discussed as well...

I thought anyone reading the discussion who was interested in the sort of topics you were bringing up would be interested in that book, as it explains many of the concepts you were talking about.

I agree that search is a confusing topic for many end users, and one of the problems is that it works differently on each site (ebay vs Amazon vs Yahoo...), so even if the user gets used to a site working one way, the next site may need a different way of thinking.

This article isn't worth the time it took to read it. No substance, and "not worth the trouble" is hardly an evaluation that means anything. How about some real information next time?

this article is over 6 months old, but it's now being displayed on the front page...don't no why..

Anyway, this thing can solve a lot of navigation problems.....

http://www.decloak.com/Products/Dreamweaver/NestedTemplates/Browser_Compatibility.aspx


can be used to make Section 508 accessible web sites...