Navigation Rules
By: Aaron B. Copyright AaronOutpost.com

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Navigation is one of the primary keys to your website. If the browser is lost or confused, they will never visit parts of your site and get aggravated and may not even view it. 

Make you site simple enough for a third grader to read.  When I was editor of the newspaper they always told us to make our articles on a third grade reading level. Not always possible but we try.

Keep a constant color scheme with the site, the text, and links colors.

The primary way to make navigational bars and such is using:

Text
Is a fast loading and easy to read navigation control. If the text is too small the browser can always enlarge it with their browser, but they can't enlarge the images without changing their monitor resolution and text is not as esthetically pleasing as images.

Fonts and Typefaces Tutorial

Graphics & Images
Images can do wonders, You can do anything and dream anything with images. Side effects; not everyone, such as the visually impaired and browsers that don't display images, will not be able to view the buttons. Always include the HTML ALT tag, which will display a text alternative to your button images.

Example: <img border="0" src="Image.gif" alt="Here is the Alt Message If image fails to load or for impaired users.">

Graphics and Images Tutorial

Language

If you are going to be directing your website internationally, remember, different words mean different things to other people. 

EXAMPLE: "pop" in parts of United States is a Soda, soft drink, coke, etc... while in other parts of the US it is understood to be a popsicle. In Germany, pop means sex.

Flash & JAVA
For the experienced there is Flash and Java. This is very popular today, however some computers are set to not run these for security reasons. Especially in educational complexes, public buildings, and businesses. These are not wise decisions. If you do decide to use such features, I would still include an alternative version of the website.