Color and Size of Text Links - Page 3

This is covered in more detail in Usability: the Basics - Graphics and Speed. Default hyperlink blue is the best option if it fits with your design scheme, but most visitors will recognise that a lot of underlined expressions listed together are almost certainly links, whatever color they are. Removing the underlining for design purposes is a bad idea because it makes the text look more like a list of keywords and less like a list of links.

Very small text sizes are often used for navigation links, which is fine as long as they're legible by anybody with poor eyesight working on a Mac (which often presents Web text at a smaller size than a PC) with a pathetically small screen set on high resolution in a sunlit room full of glare. Try to track down one of these unfortunate souls and get them to check your pages, or at least allow a safety margin. If you're not sure whether your links are sufficiently legible, they aren't.

Expanding and Dropdown Menus

There are two types of expanding navigation elements — regular HTML form dropdown boxes and custom Java or JavaScript expanding menus. The second type has three usability problems. They take time to load, they can't be seen on browsers with Java or JavaScript disabled (depending which type you use) and they mean a major part of your navigation is hidden until your visitor's mouse rolls over the right spot.

Their sole advantage is that they allow you to pack more navigation into a small space. In light of their many downsides, you should be sure that this single upside is absolutely essential before using them.

Regular HTML form elements carry the single usability penalty of hidden navigation, which isn't desirable but is a lot better than suffering time and accessibility penalties too.

Image Maps

In a word — No. For navigation, they're the usability equivalent of famine and pestilence. Usually they're associated with big pictures that take ages to download and which some people won't be able see anyway.

The Many Exceptions

The only pages where you can get away with leaving out the Home Link are "spur" or detail pages that link from just one major content page and add extra details or graphics related to that page. Here you may decide to opt to use a Back link that returns the visitor to the major content page.

It's still preferable to add a Home link too, just in case somebody arrives at the spur page via a search engine, but if the page is clearly not stand-alone then most visitors will recognise that it's spurred off another page and forgive your mild usability failure. The Back link must lead to a page that has a Home link. A sequence of pages that only lead backwards and forwards to other elements of the sequence will definitely annoy your visitors if they arrive in the middle via a search engine.

A page with no Home link and no Back link is in solitary confinement and any visitor dumped there by a search engine will almost certainly go back to see what's next on the search list. They'll realize straight away that if they stay on your site they're in for a battle with your navigation system.

Pop-up pages (small new windows usually launched using JavaScript) can very occasionally survive without any links — for example if you're using a pop-up to provide a few paragraphs of online help.

If you have an arty site that is so uncommercial it doesn't even have adverts or anything to sell, you might like to forget the rules and do something wild and adventurous with minimalist navigation. You're offering something for nothing and your visitors will be far more indulgent and forgiving than they would be with a commercial site. We don't want all the Web to look the same, do we?

Accessibility

When it comes to navigation, there's some overlap between usability and accessibility. Accessibility means making your site easily accessible to all users, including those viewing on WebTV and people with impaired vision who use talking browsers. If you follow the guidelines for good accessibility, you'll generally be improving usability too.

A fine checklist is provided by IBM at www- 3.ibm.com/able/accessweb.html. You can test your site for usability at www.cast.org/bobby/.

Structure — Splash Pages

A splash page at the front of your site has all the usability of a chocolate teapot. You may think your visitors are impressed by your wonderful page of Flash or pure graphics — but have you ever asked one of them? Chances are, they want to get straight to your content and regard your splash page as an attractively painted fence — pretty to look at but a pain to leap over.

You won't find a splash page on any popular site. If you've got one, get rid of it. Always take your visitors straight to your main menu.

Left Hand Column - Page 2
Usability and Navigation
Structure -- Hierarchy - Page 4