I came across an old article this morning which was asking for feedback on web navigation design. In my opinion, it demonstrates how the Internet has matured over the last few years with regards to navigation, design (or over design) and how search engines and search engine optimisation has had an overwhelming influence on interface design.

Whats more, it highlights the early failings of web design and how the industry got caught in the gold rush of aesthetics rather than usability. As you will see, all that glitters is definitely not gold! Less is definitely still more - and has always been. However with the web, it took a a number of years for the IT based self-educated ‘web designer’ to concede this role to someone with more relevant experience and training.

Is it down the maturing raft of designers that have ‘digital’ specific knowledge, which is more focused on the end result of conversion and usability? You can make your own mind up. However, what you can’t deny is that this progression in design is far more sensitive to enable search and internal navigation by the search engines.

Old Adobe

New Adobe

Old Amazon

New Amazon

Old Apple

New Apple

Old Expedia

New Expedia

Old Old Navy!

New Old Navy!
 

Ian

PS. Thanks to the source: http://www.jakeo.com/words/tabs.php

I am now able to create this new blog after a number of hours trying to work out why Wordpress wasn’t outputting the trailing slash on the post page URLs and so not allowing me to access the admin pages for the blog.
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