Navigation

Good navigation is essential to the usability of the University website. There are a number of tools used to navigate around the website, some of which are fixed and some which are flexible and allow users to create interesting ways to engage with the target audience.

Poor navigation can lead to user frustration. It is therefore important to have consistency across the site. That is why we have some elements that are fixed such as the left hand navigation on the main University site, the staff pages and the student pages. We also have fixed ‘Quick links’ which help people navigate to the most popular pages on the website.

Here are a few useful tips to follow when adding any navigation to a section/page:

• Navigation must be consistent across a section – ideally on all your school pages otherwise this can lead to confusion for the user. This will mainly relate to the right hand navigation as other navigation elements are fixed.
• The navigation must make sense and be relevant to the page that the user is currently viewing.
• People must be able to understand where they are on your site – this is done through the breadcrumb trail so it is important to name your pages in a way that makes sense.
• The breadcrumb comes from the file path in T4, not the URL.
• You must always think about why people are on a particular page – how did they get there? Do they want to go back to where they came from? Where might they want to go next?
• Always ensure you have a number of exit points on a page – either back, forward or sideways. This helps to create a logical site footprint which in turn helps with search engine optimisation (SEO).

As well as the right hand content, it is also possible to add child section links to a page/section to help people navigate their way around your pages. Please see the child links page for more information.