An important alternative is searching? with a Search Engine, but Navigation Design? is the interactive control center of a website, and of the entire web.
Navigating a hierarchy? or taxonomy (think of the folders and files of a computer file system) is typically limited to moving up or down the branches (vertical navigation), one step or node at a time. With Tim Berners-Lee's invention of the web and its core technology of the Hyper Link?, it became possible to jump between the branches (lateral navigation).
Indeed, it is possible to jump to any other place - on the page, on the Web Site?, or on the entire World Wide Web?. TedNelson's original idea of Hyper Text? has been fully realized.
The Hyper Text Transfer Protocol? (HTTP?) makes this possible.
The banner area of a typical web page is the home of site-wide Global Navigation.
A vertical column (or panel), usually down the left side of the page, contains Local Navigation. It is usually called a Navigation Bar?, either Left Nav? or Right Nav?.
In a classic Three Column Layout?, the column on the right contains extra materials, like advertising.
The main content area of the page contains inline text and image hyperlinks, called Contextual Navigation.
Along the top or bottom of the content area there may be Bread Crumbs, which show the Drill Down Path? to the current page through the implicit folders structure of the site's Information Architecture?.
Global Navigation and Local Navigation should be kept in master files so they are maintained in a single place and changes propagate throughout the site. This can be done with a Server Side Include?, a Frame Set? with frames for the navigation panels, or DHTML with <div>s or <iframe>s.
Many possible arrangements of banner area and navigation panels are possible.
Here are 18 possible design templates, with Frameset code and DHTML code for each template.
Reference help.skybuilders.com