Your personal design team will guide you through this process.

But it is always helpful for you to have an understanding of what they are doing and why they
are doing it.

Many websites are so confusing that the visitors get lost, can't find what they are looking for, or, in a worse-case scenario can't even comprehend what the site is about.

We spend a lot of time studying your business and defining your target user.

This enables us to develop the most intuitive, easy way to lead your clients through the information stored and available on your site.

Creating a visual representation or chart of your proposed links will help you control the site's hierarchy.

 Common Navigation Mistakes

Too many categories - Reduction is the key to success.  Combine information and avoid too many categories.  The rule of thumb is that there should be no more than 7 categories... scientific studies have established that this is all most visitors can remember.

Getting trapped in established structures - Does the structure of the site make sense or is it simply based on the company's departmental structure or some other pre-existing concept ? Always ask if the categories are logical from a visitors' point of view.

Inconsistent Navigation structure - The concept must be simple and straightforward. It should include clear global, parallel and local navigation features.  Global navigation allows visitor to move between the main sections of the site.  It is present on every page. Within each section there are usually subcategories or subsections that also require a consistent navigation structure.  Because you are moving in a parallel manner within a section, this is called Parallel navigation - and it should be present on every page within a section. Local navigation works like a table of contents. You use it to find information within a page.  It may look like a table of contents at the beginning of the page or it might be a list of links in a sidebar.

Burying information on too many levels - Many websites branch out like a tree, but if your tree includes more than 4 hierarchical levels, it is probably too complex.

Your website purpose can also affect navigation choices...