where to put page navigation links

Question

I'm wondering what are the benefits of having your top row of 'important' links/buttons on a web page duplicated at the bottom. Traditionally the bottom of forms or pages has been for boring stuff like site maps and privacy information; but; in pages where you scroll down many pages (that wrote funny) it is a pain to have to return to the top to click a link such as "Questions" or "Ask Question". I'd like the bottom to duplicate the top of a page.

Answer 1

This is quite subjective and would really depend on the web page in question. If, as you implied, the page is quite long and involves a lot of scrolling then having the links duplicated at the bottom would probably be a good idea in terms of usability. However, very long pages would possibly suggest that the web site design could do with some looking at as this is not gererally perceived as good design (again subjective as this depends on the content and function of the site.)

'Don't make me think' is generally regarded as a definitive source on web page design so would be a good place to start in getting answers to these types of issues.

Bottom line is you're free to design your page however you want and if you think it will be more user friendly to repeat your navigation at the bottom of the page then go ahead.

Answer 2

Navigation in multiple places seems fine to me. I've seen plenty of pages where the main navigation items are repeated at the bottom. I think it's very handy.

It's worth investigating CSS alternatives like the stuck-in-place navigation on a site like www.anncoulter.com. This method places a navigation block to one side that stays in one place relative to the scroll position; that is, it never moves. I mention the Ann Coulter site only because it's the smoothest execution of the concept I've seen.

It doesn't seem to work in IE7, though. FF, Opera, Chrome, and Safari for Windows all work properly; in IE7 the navigation block scrolls out of sight with the top of the page.

Steve Erbach
Neenah, WI

Answer 3

My webdesign is quite rusty, but 6-8 years ago it was considered good practice to repeat your navigation at the bottom of a page, as well as adding a 'back to top' link:

Home | News | Contact | Links | (Back to top)

But my personal favourite was to have the navigation div fixed, so that it stayed visible all the time, no matter how far you scrolled, as serbach suggests. But IE6 gave me quite some headaches, which is why I abandoned the idea. I believe that IE8 has an improved css implementation, so you might want to look into this.