Herman Drost from iSiteBuild.com explains why developing consistency is so important.  He writes, "If the visitor has to search for the buttons on every page, or if the links have different words, techniques or icons, they get annoyed. Don’t you (Drost, n.d.)?"  He adds that using the same navigation system on every page will add to familiarity and orientation.

The Web Developers at Clear Design offer advice for creating consistency:

• Use recurring navigation aid (text/bar) on all pages to create a common navigational look and feel, and increase user control.
• Make sure that recurring text or buttons appear in the same place on different pages.

The University of Wisconsin's DoIT Learning Technology and Distance Education team explain that consistency is developed through repetition of these navigation elements. They suggest that this repetition increases predictability and comfort for the site visitor.  They add that this can also assist users with understanding the context of the site.  Visitors to Designing an Effective Web Site Navigation are pointed to E-Online as an example of how colored buttons and background in the navigation help to define sections of a site.

Do you know how color is used to organize this web site?

Questions? Comments?  Do I practice what I preach? Contact me at afensie@attbi.com.
Organizing Your Web: A Guide to Creating Intuitive Navigation Structure was created by Anne Fensie for IT522 at Bridgewater State College.
Copyright 2002
Last updated October 03, 2006