The relationship
between parent sections and child subsections is crystal clear.
The position of the navigation elements in Figures 4-4 and 4-5 is not some mystical construct
decreed by the web gods, prophetically chiseled into an ancient tablet for all designers
to follow. Many websites place the global menu in the left column, or rely heavily on
drop-downs to present local options. The point is not the physical location of the menus.
Rather, the graphic design of the navigation system determines how successfully visitors
move around the site. A muddy visual hierarchy will dramatically decrease usability.
Figure 4-5. Omniture uses a very well-designed navigation to clearly indicate which navigations are
global, local, or contextual.
WEB DESIGN AND MARKETING SOLUTIONS FOR BUSINESS WEBSITES
76
Best practices
Because the range of possibilities in designing menu structures is so wide, less experienced
designers often act like kids in the candy store, grabbing icons, rollovers, drop-downs, and
animations to mix and hack together before stapling a blinking, honking, poorly labeled
navigation to the top of every page. In almost all cases, the exact opposite approach works
better.
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