Once someone starts using your website or web application, they need to know where to go and how to get there at any point. If they can't navigate through your your application easily, you'll quickly lose them. Thus, designing effective navigation in your web application is crucial.
In this series for Creative Bloq, Chris Bank of UXPin (opens in new tab), the UX design app, discusses the importance of navigation design patterns and details examples from some of the hottest websites and web apps today.
You can see previous posts in this series here (opens in new tab). Meanwhile, for more examples of web design patterns (opens in new tab), download UXPin's free e-book, Web UI Design Patterns 2014 (opens in new tab).
The problem
The user wants to know what next steps to take after finishing a task.
The solution
Give the user a clear list of next steps that they can follow to enrich their experience. Quora (opens in new tab), for example, creates a to-do list for users to follow to complete their profile.
LinkedIn (opens in new tab) does the same by showing a list of sections the user can add to their profile, pairing it with the Completeness Meter pattern to provide users with an incentive.
Most complex web apps have multiple user flows, so providing users with a to-do list can be a great way of guiding them along.
Another pattern this can be paired well with is Related Content (opens in new tab); Medium (opens in new tab) does this well, by showing the teaser for another article when the user reaches the end of the current one. This keeps the user engaged and immersed in your UI.
Words: Chris Bank (opens in new tab)
Chris Bank (opens in new tab) is the growth lead at UXPin (opens in new tab), a UX design app that creates responsive interactive wireframes and prototypes.
