A Word on Navigation

Site navigation is one of the core parts of every website. Sufficient time should be spent determining what's appropriate for the audience you're trying to reach. Some of the most important questions to ask, answer and then consider during the inital phase of the site design are:
- Is the site B2B or B2C?
- How many products or services are offered?
- Is it an e-commerce site?
- If the site is not for e-commerce, what's its goal?
- How does a user reach the site's goal? (Example: Learn-Buy-Checkout)
- How can Search Engine Optimization be ensured?

Once these questions are answered, potential type(s) of navigation and the ideal combination of them should be reviewed. Here are some examples of good solid executions (looking mainly at: labeling, ease-of-use and clarity)

Primary navigation:
Volkswagen
Rolex

Primary navigation and sub nav:
Acura
Mini USA
Amazon
Whirlpool

Left/Assisted/Faceted navigation:
Dell
Home Depot
eBay

Innovative navigation:
Usage-based: Navigate your way and organize the site navigation in a way that helps you find what you're looking for - an approach more companies should explore: Virgin

Purely innovative, great concept and visuals, but not that easy to navigate (BUT neat background music): Metropolis.

Intuitive, alphabet-based flash navigation on this Mercedes UK micro site.

Great integration of products into navigation on the Wrangler Europe site.

A helpful penguin in the bottom right helps users through the initial steps in the Red Universe, while more conventional navigation is also featured on this site.

For further reading and thinking, have a look at 'Where Am I?' on A List Apart.

Weekly Highlights

Here we go...

Each Nation Has Its Favortie Web 2.0 Tool
Adweek ran an interesting article - according to them, different nations prefer different Web 2.0 tools. The Germans love Second Life, the Japanese are all about Twitter, North America obviously lives and breathes Facebook.. have a read on Adweek.

Good, Nerdy Stuff at AdAge
AdAge has published the Digital Fact Pact. Dive in - you'll learn a bunch.

Heineken
Heineken is running a cross-media UEFA Cup-specific campaign - check out the TV spots on the campaign website and see how the world enjoys Heineken while watching soccer.. sweet spots - even if you're not into soccer.

Boo.com
A pre-dot-com-boom site (which crashed when things went sour in '99) tries a comeback. Check out the history and have a look at the new site. Success? We will see..

Jaiku
Meet Jaiku, Twitter's older brother. It's basically Twitter functionality with syncronized feeds and icons added to it. You're either Twitter, or you're Jaiku - it doesn't really matter as long as you have a way to tell the world what you're up to every second of every day. It's a way to make every second of your life meaningful and find an audience for it. Pretty strange. Pretty sad. The good thing? Most jaiku-ers update their feed with their real-life activities...

Beautifully Flawed

'Doll Face', an animation by Andrew Huang, is the portrait of many things - the influence of television on society, the need to be 'like her', immitation instead of innovation, the consequences of living a lie... an amazing piece of art.

Digg's Digital Boston Tea Party

Interesting story on Forbes about Digg's attempt to stop users from posting cracked HD-DVD encryption keys - I doubt anyone foresaw this user reaction..