When it comes to the user experience, helping your website users find what they need quickly and easily is an important consideration. And as part of this, your navigation bar will need to be well designed and easy to understand. But how can you highlight the navigation bar to show users which page they are on? And what are the benefits of doing this? Well, here at Pumpkin Web Design Manchester, we build websites specifically tailored to the requirements of companies and businesses across Manchester and the North West, including Blackburn and Chorley. We provide the perfect web design solutions for clients in all areas of business and industry. As a result, we have produced this guide to everything you should know about highlighting the navigation bar effectively.
What are the different options for highlighting the navigation bar?
Highlighting the navigation bar is a great way to indicate to website users which page they are currently on and using. This is an important design consideration for improving the user experience and ensuring that your potential customers or clients do not become frustrated, or leave your website. But what are the different design options for highlighting the navigation bar? Well there are several including:
- Changing the colour of the link text
- Changing the colour of the navigation menu block
- Adding a coloured line under the link text
Changing the colour of the link text
Ever since the early days of web design, when a link is clicked on the link text would change colour as a visual indicator to the website user, and to provide visual feedback. This principle is still applied across websites to this day, and it can be used effectively as part of your navigation bar design. When a website user clicks on a link from the navigation bar, this link text can change colour. The colour you use should be relevant to your company branding, and to your website design overall. You can opt for a colour that is a lighter or darker shade to the rest of the navigation bar, but it can be more effective to choose a different colour completely.
Changing the colour of the navigation menu block
Changing the colour of the link text may be one option but it can be easier to overlook than changing the colour of the navigation menu block completely. This is a design option that can really stand out. You should be sure to use a colour change that is clear and obvious to get the most from your design choice.
If your navigation menu is white, or the same colour as the website background, you could instead opt to colour just the navigation menu block that relates to the page. This allows the website users and potential customers and clients to see exactly which page they are on, with just a quick glance.
Adding a coloured line under the link text
By adding a colourful line underneath the link text you can draw attention immediately to the individual block on the navigation menu. This can be very effective as a more subtle way to indicate the page that the user is on, without drastically changing the colour scheme.
For more information or advice, or for high quality, professional web design solutions, get in touch with the experts today, here at Pumpkin Web Design Manchester.