A website has to be navigable. Without easy navigation, a website serves no purpose. This is especially true for eCommerce sites. Fyresite has created this guide of navigation UX to help you make the most of your eCommerce website.

What is Navigation UX?

Navigation UX is a more technical aspect of web design. While many assume that web design focuses exclusively on the aesthetics of the website, a lot of science goes into the design process.

Navigation UX is a prime example of the science of design. Navigation UX focuses on using design to make the user easy and intuitive to navigate through a website or app.

How do UX designers accomplish this? By employing the use of patterns. Here are some common patterns that are used for eCommerce websites.

Fyresite’s design of Billiards.com utilizes navigation ux patterns

Navigation UX Patterns

If you’ve been on any website, you’ve interacted with a navigation pattern. They’re so standard, you probably only notice when a site doesn’t have them. Here are a few of these patterns that are essential to getting customers from point A to point B.

Search

While having search functionality may seem like a necessity for a website, some sites do forget it. If your search function is missing, or hard to locate, it can be difficult and frustrating for your customers.

Ideally, the search function should be easily visible and accessible, regardless of the current page. This is true for both web and mobile navigation.

Call to Action Button

Buy now! Subscribe to save! Sign up to receive 15% off! All of these are common call to actions that might be seen on an eCommerce website. And there’s a reason for it. A call to action button is an extremely effective way to draw attention to a specific location.

A call to action can be in a header, a pop-up, a footer, or just on a page.

Sticky Navigation

Also known as fixed navigation, sticky navigation refers to a header that ‘sticks’ to the top of the page. This is helpful because it makes sure that the header navigation remains accessible as the user scrolls.

Navigation Drawers

A navigation drawer uses the classic hamburger menu to nestle navigation options to maximize space.

This navigation pattern allows for an uncluttered screen and easy, intuitive navigation.

Popovers

No, this isn’t referring to the light roll made from an egg batter. In navigation UX, popovers refer to a functionality that allows users to view items before clicking on them.

This gives a user time to review their options without having to click each one, saving them time and energy.

Featured and Related Items

An eCommerce store is all about sales. You want potential customers to see as many products as they can without it being overwhelming. A great way to do that is with featured and related items.

Featured items are a category that you can put in the navigation to direct customers to products that you want them to look at. This is commonly best sellers or new products.

Related items commonly display on product pages and shows the user items that are similar to the one that they are currently

Breadcrumbs

Breadcrumbs are small but mighty. Not only helpful for navigation UX, they are also a powerful tool for technical SEO.

A breadcrumb is a way for a user to see where they are on the site. For example, if you sell apparel, the breadcrumb for a product page might be Apparel -> Children’s Apparel -> Shoes.

Does Your Site Need Expert Help?

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