Persistent Navigation Panel

Recently, in Wellington, New Zealand:

A New Zealand mom made some online bids on toys before napping. Then her 3-year-old daughter took over and bought a bigger plaything than expected — a huge earth-moving digger for a cool $12,300.

For the complete story, go to http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,521120,00.html

I read the story and thought the designer of the web site from where the 3 year old bought the earth moving equipment should be given an award for web design. You might be wondering why…well, web sites should be so intuitive that anyone can use them with minimal thinking. Otherwise, the audience will most likely leave your web site out of frustration.

One way of ensuring your audience is never lost while browsing is by using a Persistent Navigation panel. What this means is there should be a familiar navigation panel on each page of the website. For example, let’s look at WorldStart.com.

From the home page, you navigate to the Cool Gadgets subsection in the Software Store section.

Notice the Persistent Navigation panel is still there, even though you have navigated to the Cool Gadgets subsection (category). A Persistent Navigation panel gives the audience comfort while searching for information or a product.

While you design your website, ensure there is a Persistent Navigation panel so that your audience knows exactly where to look when then need to navigate. This will leave the audience less frustrated and hopefully increase their stay.

~Rupen Sharma

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