You may have heard the ad on the radio: “…This is the house that Macbuilt”. Well, here is the website that we built!
Featuring a thumbnail gallery of some of their designs, the website is geared around providing useful information to people looking to build a new home. It includes a detailed Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section to dispel some common myths about steel framed homes, and the website is peppered with links for people seeking more information.
From a technical standpoint, this is our first website using our new self-identifying navigation function. What does that mean? Notice that the links in the navigation section don’t work when you’re on that page. And to emphasis the point, the current page has a black bullet instead of the standard blue.
Why is it important? Usability expert Jakob Neilsen states:
10. Don’t include an active link to the homepage on the homepage
This is a special case of a guideline that applies to all website or intranet pages: never have a link that points to the current page. (A button to refresh stock quotes or other changing information is a different matter, and should be presented as a command button rather than a navigation link since it doesn’t lead to a new location.) Active links to current pages cause three problems:
* If they click it, a link leading to the current page is an utter waste of users’ time.
* Worse, such links cause users to doubt whether they’re really at the location they think they’re at.
* Worst of all, if users do follow these no-op links they’ll be confused as to their new location, particularly if the page is scrolled back to the top.Homepage links on the homepage typically result from using a universal navigation bar that includes “home” as an option. Fine. But when users are on a page that’s featured in the navbar, you should turn off that option’s link and highlight it in such as way that indicates that it’s the current location.