Navigation - is often relied on to much.

Many sites place too much emphasis on a sites navigation bar to travel around a website. Although the navigation bar is still an integral part of a successful website I would challenge the theory that it should be the primary way to navigate your website.

It should read like a storybook…
A good website should almost read as a story, one page should succinctly follow on from the next like progressive chapters in a story book until you finally turn to your point of arrival…the end.

If your website is focused towards its goals, your users should be able to find what they want from the homepage without the need to even use the navigation bar. The key to this is well planned lead-ins and focused call to actions.

One Clear Voice…
Be careful not to have too many lead-ins on your homepage. You may argue that you want your user to carry out a multitude of different actions, but as I’ve mentioned before if you try and speak to your user with several voices at the same time, they will lot listen…if however you speak with one clear voice the likelihood of success increases.

Even if you have several different inner pages of equal importance you don’t have to announce these all at once on your homepage…each inner page can have its own call to action and its own agenda.

Navigation in the form of CTA's

Navigation bars in the style of CTA’s
There are still instances where your navigation can take prominence however. A large stylised navigation can work if is designed to take the form of several different CTA’s. This technique however can only work if you have a minimal number of sections otherwise there are too many elements fighting to deliver a message.

The Navigation bar is a Failsafe
Clients expect a Navigation bar to be in the same place, in the same way they expect a logo in top left  and a footer at the bottom, so there is no doubt you need the navigation as a failsafe. The nav is the roadmap of your site…almost like a wicket keeper, if your natural lead-ins don’t work the navigation will still be there in the same position giving your user a reassurance that they won’t get lost!

Instead of relying on your navigation we should be placing an emphasis on a smoother transition through the website using anchor links, related links, images as links etc. One of the reasons breadcrumbs have become devalued is because they shouldn’t be needed if your site is built logically.

The Final Word
So next time you begin to apply a plethora of graphical effects to your navigation, just question the navigation bars importance within your pages hierarchy.

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