User Centered

One of the big problems with website navigation is creating a structure that is just as easy to find your way if you come straight to the homepage, or from a search engine.. you can't determine where the user will land.

The easy solution for this is just to have a global navigation that visible everywhere with easy access to the homepage, customizable 404 pages that will help a lost user, etc. But its nice to see when extra measures are taken to consider "alternative points of entry" into a website. In otherwords, design your site so that any page can easily get you back to some central navigation hub.

But there are other good ideas out there. How about figuring out what the user is doing and using that information to help them out a bit? Sure, it isn't a new concept, but still puts a smile on my face when I run across it. This website actually has a section on the right of the page that tells me where I came from and what I was searching for. It then recommends other posts that might be of interest to me. Great concept, it helps me find content without searching, makes a recommendation, advertises itself, and gives me the feeling that my search was "understood." I wish more sites would consider using to help a user who may have jumped into the site from an unanticipated point (well, you should anticipate all points, but you get the idea)

Here at User Centered, I still get posts on topics from a long time ago, presumably from search engines, something like this would go over quite nicely here in my opinion.