CTRL-F Website Navigation
Saturday, June 24th, 2006On many occasions when I visit a website I know exactly what I am after; I just don’t know where it is on the page. In these situations I usually resort to using CTRL-F to search the text on the webpage for the keywords I am after. This usually occurs when a website becomes so large and the density of hyperlinks becomes so great it is almost impossible to organize everything. Let me define it:
CTRL-F Navigation - CTRL-F Navigation is the primary navigation mechanism for websites that become too convoluted as to be navigated by the built-in website menu. CTRL-F is a feature in all web browsers that allows the user to search the text on a webpage for certain keywords. CTRL-F Navigation is typically used to find a hyperlink containing the keyword you are after. For example you may use CTRL-F to find common navigational items such as: Search, Login, Logout, or Signup. CTRL-F only works if the link you are after is text-based and not an image or a button.
Lets take a look at the top 5 sites on Alexa and determine the need for CTRL-F Navigation:
- Yahoo - Just as I was finally able to efficiently navigate their old design Yahoo redesigns their site. CTRL-F is a must for finding anything on the Yahoo or MyYahoo pages.
- MSN - I don’t use this page but I have to look at it every time I sign out of my Hotmail account. CTRL-F is probably necessary and would work fine.
- Google - The Google search page is a simple as it can be and there is no need for CTRL-F Navigation. However, if you need to use any of the Google services CTRL-F won’t help you find them from google.com.
- Myspace - I don’t use MySpace and I visited it for the first time while writing this post. The navigation was much cleaner than I imagined it would be. CTRL-F isn’t necessary.
- Ebay - There is probably a reason for the proliferation of third-party Ebay front-ends out there. A lot of people don’t even use Ebay to search Ebay.
My personal favorite and the reason I wrote this post is Amazon. I buy a lot of things off of Amazon and CTRL-F is the only way to navigate that jungle.
There is a lot of poor website navigation out there. If you can’t find what you need on a website perhaps you should reconsider why you are using the website in the first place.
