Information Architecture — Navigation

Navigation is the way in which a user will cruise through the information provided in the product to achieve his end goal. This is a crucial component because if the navigation does not guide the users properly, it can lead to frustration and eventually the product will end up losing the users. Information can be organized in many ways to make it available to the users in an efficient way. The different navigation patterns are:

1. Single page pattern:

This is a very simple pattern meant for small websites where all information is fit into one single page

2. The flat pattern:

This is meant for simple websites where the topics available are few and they all are arranged as peers, that is, no hierarchy.

3. The index pattern:

This is a simple pattern with one single index page that points to different pages.

4. The hub and spoke model:

This is where the users can access several workflows that start at a single point. For instance, in online shopping, several activities can revolve around one particular product- like changing size, color, payout, exchange, return etc.

5. Strict hierarchy:

In this structure, there are several hierarchies and the child page is always accessible through its respective parent page only.

6. Multi-dimensional hierarchy:

This structure also follows a hierarchical pattern, but the child pages are interlinked to each other. So, a parent page can be connected to a child who does not strictly belong to it and the child can be connected to many parent pages.