Is clever navigation a dumb path or shrewd move?

Posted By: Jayenne MontanaNovember 22nd, 2011

Purposefully choosing the word ‘navigation’ over that of ‘menu’ so as to avoid conjuring up visions of lists of words with drop-downs containing yet more words and more drop-downs as the De facto means of helping visitors get to where they need to be. As a website developer I am constantly wrestling creativity with practicality. Meeting the needs and expectations of the visitors with those of the client and that of the technology used is the minimum I should be doing.

In reality all designers want to break free of the box, creating that elusive X-factor for every project. However, whilst researching fresh means to achieve this, I have found some high profile brands like Nike and VW Beetle that makes me ask if they are possibly in danger of going too far in chasing that ‘great user experience. Are they at risk of disorienting, confusing and frustrating visitors in their quest to engaging and inspire them rather than do something as mundane as plain ol’ “helping” them get what they need and you want to provide.

Take a brief look at these sites… (but then do come back)

Nike (Better world)

Activated Drinks

VW Beetle

Beer Camp

…Welcome back, did you enjoy them?

Technically, what they are doing is very clever, I SHOULD LOVE IT – right? If developing a ‘cool site’ was the goal then arguably they have scored the proverbial net-buster, but creating the ‘great user experience’ is not just about technical wizardry is it? I would argue that as a minimum, a web site needs to befit the clients company, whether by raising sales or awareness or perception – Does this kind of site do this?

Are they creating a user’s club where if you can’t work out the navigation then you’re not our kind of people and is this a better approach to make?

I’d like to ask you, as you are still reading and because of this, I value your opinions more highly than those who did quite make it this far – Do you prefer to ‘use a website’ or ‘experience a website’?

Tags: confusing, creative, frustrating, innovating, navigation
Posted in Creative

Comments

Anonymous

I think my answer needs to be as long as the blog, complex issue. I think you should use or experience a website depending on many things, but both have a role to play. The principal of poor navigation and/or too many web gimmicks is a real issue.

However in the particular examples shown, I feel only Beer Camp is possible a step too far, although even then to promote this kind of event it had to be wacky and really ‘out there’, so perhaps even that is OK, just takes a bit of getting used to.

I think Activate is a great website as it combines traditional nav with this new parallax scrolling technology. The Nike site is perfect for their brand, they are all about experience in everything they do. And then the only one that is a surprise is VW Beetle, although I think this is awesome. I am sure that the brief for this was to create something that would reinforce the message that the Beetle’ is back and better than ever before. It is cool and current etc etc. And the key to feeling 99% confident this is meant to be an experience (I would say a great one) is that there is a link to the main VW site that you then ‘Use’ or in real terms communicates traditionally.

Only negative for me on VW Beetle is that they do not have any additional nav other than scrolling that both Nike and Activate do.
Anonymous

What hits me about the first three websites is, they embraces the ideal that people are happy to scroll and because of this the websites feels like a space rather than constrained pages.

I think that for showcasing work/products it does work, but when it comes to the actual sales pitch perhaps traditional menu links and pages is better because you have a serious message.

Saying that, Activated Drinks uses a navigation menu bar which doesn’t alienate less web savvy users who expect to such. This to me is the best of both, you can ‘experience’ the website or ‘use it’ as you wish.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Sally-Hawkes/100001015647174 Sally Hawkes

These style of websites I generally think are cool. I do think that there are occasions for sure when the web user will not like all the fancy scrolling and may just want to find the information quickly. Maybe it is because they are massive established brands that they get away with doing these things as we expect them to impress us and would be disappointed if there wasn’t something a little bit different going on….
Anonymous

Parallax is helping web navigation catch up with animation and that can only be a good thing because it’s an awesome effect however a couple of these samples have proved that you have to use it properly other wise it becomes non user friendly and like the VW website pretty confusing.

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Is clever navigation a dumb path or shrewd move?

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