Website Navigation

Being able to navigate easily through a website is a very important thing. Without good navigation, a website can become very frustrating to use, and the end user will leave your website in disgust.

The type of navigation, that I was thinking of having on my website, would be some sort of horizontal bar near the top. Maybe with a simple roll-over effect, but not much more than that. I don't want the navigation to system to be any more advanced that it has to be.

Here are some sample screen captures of what I had in mind:

Source: http://www.psdgraphics.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/glossy-navigation-menu-preview.jpg

If my website grows and ends up having many pages, then I would consider putting in some sort of "fly-out" secondary navigation, but this is relatively easy to do using CSS. I am not proposing anything fancy here.

A sample of "fly-out" navigation system

Source: http://sixrevisions.com/user-interface/navigation-design-patterns/

Links:

Web Design Navigation Showcases | Smashing Magazine

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/web-design-navigation-showcases/

Website Navigation - Web Page Mistakes
http://www.webpagemistakes.ca/website-navigation/

Guide to Website Navigation Design Patterns - Six Revisions
http://sixrevisions.com/user-interface/navigation-design-patterns/

Some CSS code for drop down navigation bars
http://css3menu.com/

Design is Design is Design

I have returned to my first unit of this course, which was design elements and principles, and funny enough the design concepts that I learnt there, which were predominantly taught for the print based industry can be used for web design.

Here is an example of Balance in a website.

Source: http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/design/graphic-design-basics-design-principles/

Here is great article, I found absolutely fascinating.

Part 1: http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/design/graphic-design-basics-elements/

Part 2: http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/design/graphic-design-basics-design-principles/

It is great to be able to use what I have learnt in other classes, and for other design areas, and apply them to web design.

Links:

Understanding the Rule of Thirds in Web design:
http://tympanus.net/codrops/2012/05/23/understanding-the-rule-of-thirds-in-web-design/

Type Effects and Modification:
http://tympanus.net/codrops/2012/02/09/type-effects-and-modification/

Is there room for negative space in web design:
http://tympanus.net/codrops/2011/09/23/is-there-room-for-negative-space-in-web-design/

How to write a website brief

This is just quick blog post about writing a brief.

I need to write a brief about my project. Not only as it is part of the subject's requirement, but it is also something I want to have and use to keep me focused and on-track during the duration of the semester.

Here is an article I have found, which I will use as a guide to writing such a brief

http://www.methodandclass.com/article/write-a-web-site-brief/