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Informational environment WWW is based on hypertext technology, which is, in its turn, based on concept of connecting texts by means of links. Exactly links united Internet in a unique space, entitled users the right to move freely without thinking about structure and spatial distributiveness of this complicated system. Use of hyperlinks in proper ways is the most important factor of the site's usability increase. Outstanding specialist in the area of usability, Jacob Nilsen says that site's navigation must in any moment provide visitor with answers to such three questions: 1. Where am I? 2. Where have I already been? 3. Where can I go? Analysis of routes of visitor's hits on a site shows that main sources of traffic are search engines. Therefore, it is very important

to make visitor not only come to internal page of a site from search engine, but also help him (her) understand what subsection and what page he (she) is in. At designing of pages you must take into consideration a situation when user comes to internal page at once. Therefore, each site's page must contain the following elements: company's logo, which is the link to front page, and also a short description of field of activity; central navigation showing a structure of main informational units of a site (sections and subsections); search field. If you need to exclude visitors' coming to a definite page from a search engine, you must ban its indexing by search engines. This means that you must place the following text in the element of navigation: "Search engines are to exclude this page from the database." All elements of navigation are divided in relation to a site into internal and external. External means are performed as browser's buttons controlling browsing a site. Internal navigation can be divided into main and supplementary. Central element of main navigation is navigation menu or bar. Main navigation is usually presented by structural links addressing to sections of a site. Such links as "Page Up" or "Home", etc, are related to a supplementary navigation. It is desirable to make structural links different from supplementary and cross links placed in text. On a majority of sites they look the same. That is why, it is often becomes not clear whether a link addresses to a separate section, or to a whole page. Users of download - managers frequently face a problem of determination of such links content, when they need to indicate to what level of enclosure they should download whole site or its separate sections. Qualitative supplementary navigation must include links addressing to a preceding section, contents section, and main page of a site. It is suitable to imagine this as the following route: HomeShop.by>Home appliances>Squeezers>Moulinex Sites having multi-level structure must obligatory contain such navigation. All elements of a command line, except for the last one, are to be the links to appropriate pages. For division of navigation links it is not recommended to use such symbols like ":" and "|", since they don't give information about level of enclosure and pages subordination. Optimal variant is a choice of symbols "/" or ">" as separators. Navigation system must distinctly inform user of that where to go from current page and what information to get on it. It is not correct to use links "Next", "Next Page" and so on. Especially inappropriate link is considered to be "Back" one, on page, which user gets on from search engine, since it may be interpret as return to the window of search results. You should better use informative links like: "Next Chapter: Basics of visual design". It is useful to fill in an attribute "title", which shows floating description for a link at cursor point. Sometimes separate types of links contain links of global navigation addressing to pages like About us, Contact us and so on. Global links must be available from any site's page. And what's more, often such links are placed both in top and bottom of a page. There is a theme navigation, which is represented by links, the list of which is generated and presented, depending on that what information on this page was loaded by user. For instance, if this is an article, so you may place at its bottom links to articles of similar themes, placed in order of relevance reverse, relating to current theme. For online shop these links can address to lists of the best purchases, to products of the same category but of other manufacturers and so on. URL - address as an element of navigation. URL - address of a site can be convenient for user, if names of catalogues and files are informative. For instance: www.macromedia.com/software/dreamweaver/tutorial/links.html. Obviously, that this address contains a page of visual Macromedia Dreamweaver HTML editor tutorial, which is devoted to work with links. Apart from additional informational source of site's structure, URL can be used for quick navigation to a page needed, by means of address shortening. For instance, having deleted a part of address to section "software", you may jump to a page presenting software of Macromedia company. If URL - address contains numerated pages or subcatalogues, for example, , so, having changed a figure, you can enter a page needed. This means that use of a simple and logically structured URL - address is another one method of simplifying navigation of a site. A lot of pages contain external links addressing to other sites. Thus, in such a manner the basic philosophy of the World Wide Web is realized, the essence of which is in the intercommunication of resources. Usually, external and internal links are not different by design. It is recommended to highlight links addressing to other resources, for example, by placing any graphical picture near by. The main disputable question concerning external links is that, in which window it's better to show their content. Many people consider external link opening in a new window to be a bad form-style, since, if resource deserves attention, so user will come to it anyway. However, there is an opposite point of view. Process of a site's navigation, as well as a process of considering and understanding of a shown information, must not be interrupted by addressing to other resources. And this is the most inoffensive way of holding a visitor, which acts in compliance with a rule: new site must have a new window. At pointing on external link, status line must show address of an appropriate resource, and owing to this, user can get some additional information. If link addresses to a file, for instance, for downloading, it is necessary to show its size. Text link as the element of navigation. Links placed in text must not melt into main text. If text contains underlined type or links with the same design, so it becomes very difficult to find a command of hypertext navigation, only if you will be assiduously moving your cursor on text. Thus, if a site uses links underlining, it is not recommended to highlight text in order to attract attention to it. Since many of users are used to comprehend underlining on web - pages as a standard. Navigation elements of a site must be easily recognizable. User's eye must clearly distinguish them among other site's elements. Jacob Nilsen (www.useit.com) has still been recommending using a classic design of links with blue colour and underlining, despite of its moral obsolesce. This question is very disputable, and there any monosematic recommendation could be. However, at this moment, when possibilities of designing of outward appearance of your page elements with the help of CSS are practically unlimited, it is difficult to agree with Nilsen. Moreover, physiologists state that perception of a deep blue colour is limited because of small quantity of receptors perceiving the length of a blue colour wave. In their opinion, degree of a blue colour readability perceived from monitor display, is quite low in comparison with other colours. Selection of a colour for visited links is not so actual, as for active ones. The main task is to make user identify already visited links. You may use less saturated colour for "inactive" links, than for active links, or a colour, which is more closed to colour of main text or even background. Thus, designing of a navigation is one of the most important moments at site creation, which corresponds to usability requirements. If a site's navigation is not logical both by structure and design, so the main method of navigation on such site will be a "blind method", which is absolutely irrelevant in such a dynamic environment as Internet. Thus the main condition of work with site will be violated, to wit - operative receiving of information with minimum time and resources spending.

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