According to Hansel and Gretel, if you leave little crumbs along a path you will be able to find your way home. Home like in life, is the place where you want to be. On a website, you start at the home and it is usually the first place you go back to when you are lost or can’t find what you’re looking for. There have been studies that show when most users cannot find what they want; they go back to the home page to start over. There are many ways to set-up your navigation. A popular method is known as Bread Crumb Navigation, and for web design, this is imperative.
Breadcrumb navigation is a way of setting up your navigation so that a user always knows where, within the main site, they are. This can be extremely useful if you have a lot categories and or a lot of content. Here is how it works. First, you have your main category home, and then let us say you move into another category like books. Therefore, it would look like this: Home > Books. Look at the picture below.
Do you see how it works? It’s really quite simple, you have a home category then a group of the largest categories and then sub categories within each on of those and so on and so forth. It’s a simple way to organize your navigation bar. There are different ways this navigation is setup and it varies for each web design. The picture above the navigation is shown with right arrows however, some designers use pipes, colons, slashes, bullets, text and even sometimes left arrows. Here are a few examples:
All are a little different but the overall principle still applies. People especially these days are notorious for having short attention spans so simplicity is very important. Whichever way is the simplest to understand, is the best way for your website. Some may be more difficult to set up however you have to keep in mind that the user benefits greatly from this technique. Remember that 45% of web pages use this navigation because of it’s efficiency and convenience.
March 30th, 2007 at 8:14 am
Once again, great post. I myself have been using crumb navigation for a long time and as an avid internet surfer I can say it’s important to have an easily navigated website.
April 2nd, 2007 at 10:05 am
It makes a lot of sense. When i browse sites i need to be able to easily direct my next move and really a site only has a chance if it has full functionality the way i like that.
June 26th, 2007 at 9:22 pm
EGB Systems & Solutions Inc is an IT company. We have well trained and experienced staff. We have programmers, software testers and SEO. The working environment is very good.Our company is a full service web site design company providing all services such as website optimization, search engine submissions and promotion.Our motto is “If you think big, then you can achieve the goal”.
Layout and Design
All the web pages should have navigation aid so that it will be convenient for the user to move to the next page. The web
pages should have graphics with less color.
Original Content
Each web page should be unique. By doing this, the user feels like navigating towards the next web page. Any overlap of the
content may lose the interest of the user.
There are so many ways you can make the web site attractive. Website design services include the following:
* Static web design
* Dynamic web design
* Website re-design
Static Website Design
A static website is the simplest way to showcase your business online. It is the easiest type of website to set up, but
making changes to static websites require web programming knowledge.
Dynamic web design
If you require regular or constant updates to your website, consider dynamic website services.
Web site re-designs
As the Internet grows, outdated methodologies are causing more and more websites to fall to the side. It is important that
you keep the look of your website fresh and maintain cutting-edge standards of design, navigation, and functionality. You
should regularly schedule a complete redesign of your website, periodically giving your visitors a new and exciting
experience. This service will ensure:
* Professional execution of the website.
* Increases your user’s usability.
* Enhance the perception of your organization.
While designing a custom Website for our clients, we ensure the following:
* Information architecture: structural design of shared information environments.
* Accessibility
Flash website design is useful and
helpful in creating innovative design of the website. This website also creates animation with sound effects, thereby leaving
long-lasting impact on the users. Flash web pages are full of graphics and multimedia content.
You can do flash animations and corporate flash presentations so that the user will be attracted to the website. You can
utilize flash in your website in forms of:-
* Flash Introductory page
* Animated Logo design
* Photo galleries
* Animation with background music
* Flash Buttons
* Flash Menus
In flash animation, combination of different fonts and effects and an unlimited number of text lines is possible.
Our approach to web application begins with creating systems that meet functional requirement and serve large organization
goal. We enhance the work quality and efficiency of the users.
Our web application development
services include:
* Strategy and planning - A complete needs analysis
* User interface design - Application design, layout, and navigational controls
* Software engineering - Full functional and technical documentation
* Production and deployment -quality assurance
Some of the types of applications we have developed:
* Web database design and development
* System upgrades and migration
* Customer service systems
* Feedback and communications systems
* Online ordering, e-commerce systems, and online payment options
Outsourcing is the practice of giving the project work to professionals. It is a term used when a company takes a part of its
business and gives that part to another company.
Need of outsourcing
The reason of outsourcing is:
* To reduce capital expenditure over a business process.
* The management gets more time to concentrate over core competencies.
* We need not depend upon internal resources.
* Increases the flexibility to meet the changing business and commercial conditions.
Types of outsourcing
Offshore outsourcing: When a company on another continent is involved is offshore outsourcing.
Near shore: This refers to outsourced projects outside the country, but on the same continent.
Eg: US based company outsourcing to a company in Canada.
Why should we outsource?
Outsourcing depends on various factors:
If we take an example of IT, there could be one of the circumstances favoring an outsourcing solution:-
* Less of senior IT management
* IT strategy not consistent with business strategy
* IT budget is not predictable
* High inventory costs
Benefit of outsourcing
Outsourcing is useful in increasing product quality, lowering firm consumer cost.
* To focus on core competencies.
* Benefit the economy in terms of productivity.
Disadvantage of outsourcing
Outsourcing may result in the loss of flexibility in reacting to changing business conditions and cost savings.
If your company is outsourcing business process such as payroll, confidential information such as salary will be known to
service provider. So we must be careful in choosing which process to outsource and which one not.
http://www.egbsystems.com
July 10th, 2007 at 5:59 pm
I could write forever about what it takes to make a great website that will attract all visitors but most important is the home page. A home page must be simple enough to guide a first time user on the Internet. This does not mean you have to sacrifice outstanding graphics/images that will attract the eyes of the reader and lead them where they need to go.
I spend multiple hours viewing various websites online everyday and if the home page doesn’t flow right away then I am out of there. This is a very important post for anyone who has or is getting a website.
Kerry Hancock Jr
President
House of Hancock Inc
http://www.houseofhancock.com