Any good examples of 'usable navigation'

[Calculus]

Glad I found this forum, I'm a big convert over the last year to usability etc.

One area that's so hard to get right is the navigation of a site. It's always where I -

a) have to think the longest, and
b) struggle the most

I don't know if posting or urls is allowed in this forum but if they are can people please post some examples of sites where you think they've got the Navigation working well.

[Don_Hoagie]

Unfortunately, no, you won't find people posting specific URLs as it's against the T.O.S.

However, if you'd like to find out about accessible nav, check out CSS-styled lists, sliding doors, etc. Using CSS to create menus allows you to A) give the impression of styled, graphic content while actually having text, or B) display image links that revert to text when only text-browsers are used.

There are examples all over the web... dive in.

[le_gber]

you could also go down your library and pick up 'don't make me think' by Steve Krug - you will get some ideas of good/usable navigation (he does like tabs - so you can see which sites will be featured in his book ;))

As Don_Hoagie said - 'sliding doors' is a good search term for usable tabs

[Calculus]

Thanks for the replies. Yes, I have Krug's book and agree with his likeness for tabs but implementing usuable and clear navigation/tabs is not easy.

I'll check out the Sliding Doors page, thanks.

[tedster]

One key to great navigation is having a good information architecture to begin with, and then working hard to get the menu labels to be very intuitive. In general I find that once site development gets to the point where we have a great set of menu labels, then graphic design and everything else just falls out relatively easily.

There are some threads in the library that take an in-depth look at these issues:

Information Architecture for the Small Site - part 1 [webmasterworld.com] (pile up the content)
Information Architecture for the Small Site - part 2 [webmasterworld.com] (menu labels)
Putting Information Architecture Into Practice [webmasterworld.com]