Designing Web Navigation

SUMMARY

Getting the right labels is critical to navigation. The Vocabulary Problem, proposed by Professor George Furnas and his colleagues, is an important concept. Their research shows that the likelihood of two people using the same term to describe an object is very low. On the Web, however, navigation labels don't appear out of context. When creating labels, consider the context of the site, page, and user expectations and experiences. Create a meaningful shared reference of understanding.

A primary quality of good navigation labels is speaking the user's language; avoid company lingo, technical terms, clever labels, and abbreviations. Try to make labels as descriptive as possible. Good labels are also mutually exclusive and focused. Finally, labels should be consistent in granularity, syntax, presentation, and usage.

Longer labels tend to be more successful than short ones. Research shows that links that are between 7 and 12 words long perform the best. If a link label is too long, however, it becomes too much for people to read. Trigger words are less likely to be present in shorter labels. There is no rule with label length, but try to clarify labels appropriately.

Labels are part of a larger system of elements that all contribute to navigation. Menu items, browser titles, URLs, and page titles, for instance, are best when coordinated into a unified scheme. However, flexibility needs to be accounted for to avoid issues of redundancy and unnecessary navigation elements.

Persuasive ...