Creating Intuitive Navigation: How to Simplify Your Website’s User Journey

By Gavin Kilgallon on Tuesday, 12 November 2024

Modern websites consist of several key areas. These typically include headers, navigation, content, footers, and Call-to-Action (CTA) sections. This article will focus on the vital role of navigation in web design and why and how it plays a fundamental role in a website's success. This article will draw upon our firsthand experience as one of London's most respected web agencies, having worked on hundreds of websites across most business sectors. We will outline how we customise navigational best practices to align with our client's target audiences. This approach ensures the creation of user-centric websites that deliver impactful results and maximise user engagement.

Benefits Of User-Centric Navigation

We will cover some of the main benefits of well-designed and user-centric navigation.

UX is essential, and a website that is easily navigated, with information that can be found effortlessly, and a consistent and obvious navigation system will significantly improve usability and enjoyment.
Enabling your visitors to explore and find information with ease will greatly improve user engagement and reduce the bounce rate. It will also help to encourage users to interact with your website and spend longer looking around.
If users can find what they are looking for, they are more likely to become conversions. Navigation is significant in guiding users to purchase, sign up for a newsletter or view important information. The easier you make this process, the more likely you are to improve conversions.
Creating a positive and highly enjoyable website experience also benefits your brand. It shows visitors that you are a professional business that cares about your customers.
There can also be search engine benefits. A clear navigational structure will allow search engines to better index your website and, at the same time, gain a better understanding of your business and target audience.

Understand Your Website Users

When building a website, knowing and understanding your users is highly beneficial. This is also true for the navigation process. It allows you to develop navigation that aligns with user needs and preferences. Gaining information on user persona, demographics, and behaviour will help provide insights into how to structure the navigation and create a more user-friendly website experience. Some standard techniques used to gain information include:

Incorporate relevant surveys.
Examine your analytics; this can provide very insightful information on your website audience.
Incorporate software such as Hotjar, which provides heat maps of user behaviour, allowing you to see what users are looking at and clicking on.
Incorporate usability and A/B testing.

Don't Over Complicate Things

On many occasions, we have been approached to redesign a website that is not achieving the desired results, and this has been due to poorly designed navigation. Too often, businesses want to look modern and pioneers in design. However, an overcomplicated menu and link system can frequently result in user frustration and poor UX. Some examples of bad practices we have encountered include:

Placing the menu in a non-familiar location makes it challenging to locate naturally.
Having overcomplicated drop-down menus that are not intuitive.
A crowded menu system with too many options makes website visitors have to think too hard to decide where to go.
Navigational labels that are too small or 'trendy' (user is unsure what they mean).

This does not mean your website cannot be unique, engaging and ultra-modern. It just means that consideration should be given to the people visiting the site.

Consistency And Uniformity Across The Website

User Experience is a critical element for any website and is especially important for navigation. It allows you to provide a familiar experience for your users to locate information and achieve their objectives without too much hassle. Consistent navigation allows the user to concentrate on their core objectives and not have to keep thinking about how to explore the site. An intuitive navigation also creates a positive brand image, showing that thought and consideration have been given to the design process. This, in turn, will help improve engagement and conversion rates as users can more easily achieve their objectives.

Some practices that help to improve uniformity include:

Make important website pages primarily accessible (see below for more information).
Select a font and style and keep it uniform across the website.
Create fixed menu placement areas throughout the site.
Keep consistent navigational design elements, such as colour and buttons.

Website Key Pages

Your website should align with your business objectives by enabling users to find essential information swiftly. During the wireframing process, thought needs to be given to which pages should be more prominent within the navigation. Providing easy access to these areas will improve conversion rates and reduce dropouts. We have found that typical core sections usually include product or service pages, about us, and contact pages.

Whether your website's objective is to generate sales, promote an event, provide customer support, or provide valuable marketing information, making these sections easily accessible will improve conversions.

Accessibility

Accessibility has become more prevalent and important recently, not only because it is a good design practice. It also makes good business sense, and in some circumstances, there are legal obligations such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA & WCAG) in the USA or the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. Accessibility does improve the UX for people with disabilities. However, it is also helpful for everyone as information is often more visible. By incorporating accessibility into your website, you enhance the overall user experience, improve engagement and enhance your brand perception.

Some good practices include:

High-contrast colour schemes such as black on white or white on black (known as dark mode web design)
Include alt tags descriptions.
Enable keyboard navigation.
Ensure you have included link text descriptions.
Incorporate HTML elements that aid accessibility technologies.

Search Is Your Freind

It is not essential for all websites, but search can considerably enhance the UX through a quick and straightforward process. Search tools can be tailored for each website.

Some search techniques for your website include:

Predictive text filling is where users start to fill in the search query, and AI predicts the rest.
Include filters such as price, category, etc.

Keep Testing And Request Feedback

Testing and receiving feedback on your website's navigation and overall user experience allows you to pinpoint and correct any issues. Some common problems we often encounter at ID Studio include complex menu structures with too many layers, non-descript language, 'sticky' menus, or slow-loading website navigation.

Conclusion

In conclusion, a web design agency should try to create an unsurpassable user experience. At ID Studio, we understand the important role that navigation plays in a website's success. By prioritising clarity, consistency and accessibility, websites can ensure they are aesthetically pleasing and functional. Thoughtout and planned design choices lead to increased engagement, reduced bounce rates, and a more happy user. Our approach combines creative design with user-centric principles, ensuring that our clients' websites support their business goals effectively and efficiently.