Revised: April 24, 2000

Navigation

The navigation appropriate for your site will depend on the structure of the site and how people will use the site. 

• Simple site with few pages - In a simple site with few pages, the site will generally have a hierarchical, tree-like structure consisting of a home page and second-level pages.  In such a site, a single page (generally the home page) will have links to the second level pages.  In such a case, there are 3 primary options for the second level pages:

  -no link to other pages in the site
  -a link back to the home page
  -a link to the home page and all the other pages in the site

  There are three disadvantages of the first option: (1) the user must use the "back button" on the browser to get around the site, and (2) the user must revisit the home page to get from one second level page to another, and (3) if the user were to enter the site at the second level (e.g., from a link from another site or from a search engine result), the user would have no way of getting to other pages in the site without removing one level in the location bar in the browser to get to the home page.  The disadvantage of the second option is the required revisit to the home page to get to other second level pages. The third option addresses all three of these disadvantages.  The principal disadvantages of the third option are that it requires a change to the navigation bar in each page whenever a new page is added, and the navigation bar becomes too large when the number of second level pages is much more than about 8.

• Larger site with more pages - In a larger site with more pages, a common structure is for the hierarchical, tree-like structure to extend down additional levels.  For example, the class website is located at www.nvcc.edu/home/wpegram  This web site includes material for several classes: IST 117, IST 128, as well as future classes.  So the pages at the second-level in this website are primarily directory-type pages rather than content pages.  This website doesn't currently have any links "up the chain" or to other pages at the same level.  Because the users of one part of the website generally won't be using another part of the site, there is less need for a link on all second level pages to other second level pages.  

  The common and recommended approach in such a site is analogous to the third alternative above for simple sites - the home page and the second level pages all include links to the home page and to all second level pages.  See for example, the website for Alamo Rental Car at www.alamo.com or the site I did at www.stanfordclub.org/dc.  Rather than deleting the reference to the page on which one is currently located, most web designers seem to advocate leaving the reference but disabling the link.
  

• Linear site - Sometimes portions of a site will have a linear structure.  Such is generally the case for tutorials.  In such a case, a reasonable navigational structure allows one to go backward and forward one page, as well as to jump to another page in the list.

Comments to William Pegram, wpegram@nvcc.edu