Navigating between different pages on your website is something that every user needs to be able to do. And while this can be achieved with text links and call to action buttons, the navigation menu is usually the most important method for this. In recent years, there has been a change in trend for navigation bars, as companies and businesses move away from static navigation bars and towards minimal navigation trends including hamburger menus and slide out/pull out bars. But what are the advantages of minimal navigation? And could this benefit your website? Well, here at Pumpkin Web Design Manchester, we are Manchester’s leading web design experts, and we provide high quality, effective, web design solutions for a range of local companies and businesses across Manchester, and the surrounding area. This includes Blackburn and Stockport. As a result, we have produced this guide to everything you should know about minimal navigation and the benefits of this trend.
What are the advantages of minimal navigation in web design?
There are many advantages to using minimal navigation options instead of fixed or static options. These advantages include:
- Leaving more room on the screen
- Meeting user expectations
- Providing more information than a standard navigation bar
Minimal navigation leaves room for design
With a minimal navigation method, you have the entire screen to work with, creating visually stunning designs and imagery that will capture the attention and interest of your potential clients or customers. The above the fold space, for example, will not be broken or divided by a static navigation if you only have a small hamburger icon for the navigation menu. This means that you can alter the focus of the above the fold content, driving attention straight to the call to action button for early conversions.
Minimal navigation meets user expectations
With minimal navigation options being used extensively across technology, including phone and app design, your users are more aware than ever when it comes to this type of navigation design. At the same time, as this has been adopted across web design, minimal navigation has almost become the norm, especially for mobile websites. As a result, using this technique in your web design will help to meet user expectations, and improve the overall user experience.
Minimal navigation can provide more information than a standard navigation bar
Using a hamburger menu or a slide out menu generally means that when the menu is on screen, it takes up the whole screen, or at least the majority of it. So instead of just a small amount of space big enough for one word, that is the norm for static navigation bars, minimal navigation systems actually leave enough space for a lot more information. Listing each top level page down the screen means that you can include a sentence about what your users can find in each section or category, which in turn, makes the browsing experience easier for your potential customers or clients.
For more information about effective web design, get in touch with the experts today, here at Pumpkin Web Design Manchester.