Wayfinding

Helpful Wayfinding: Guides Users
People can navigate a site, feature, or page following self-explanatory signposts.

Making it easy for people to navigate around a website or application helps everyone find what they need more quickly and more effectively. Clear wayfinding especially helps people with visual, mobility, or cognitive impairments who may otherwise find it difficult to understand where they are and how to get to where they want to go.

For most website work, for example, using Canvas and OpenScholar, much of the navigational framework is already in place. However, when you add content, you still need to ensure that navigation and orientation aids such as headings, links, lists, and icons are well designed and well organized.

When content creators focus on helpful wayfinding:

  • Pages have clear wayfinding cues, for example, headings and lists that help users make their way through content
  • Wayfinding is provided using semantic markup to support people who user screen reader software