Everyday Information Architecture

Chapter 5. Navigation and Wayfinding

Websites are all alike, in some ways. The internet’s been around long enough now that—whatever carousels and tables and JavaScript frameworks come and go—we’ve developed certain expectations about how websites function.

We have, collectively, a mental map for website organization. We expect navigation somewhere near the top of the page. We expect some kind of footer. We generally look for subnavigation in dropdowns or to the sides.

Building off those shared expectations supports information access. When we encounter systems that buck convention (oooh, how disruptive and edgy), we often can’t use the information ...