A minor navigation detail makes a difference

By Dominic Jones

THREE minutes, that’s all the time the average web visitor to your fancy online annual report is going to give you.

So when you see this kind of useless navigation on the chairman’s letter of a really big company you know the folks who put it together aren’t thinking about communicating, they’re just “doing web design.” See the image below.

Useless navigation

What’s wrong with the above navigation? For starters, it tells you nothing except that there are five pages in the letter. There’s no indication of what information is provided on each page.

If there was, more people might be inclined to click through to them.

Now here’s what good navigation for a multi-page letter looks like:

Better navigation

See the difference? The one tells you nothing. The other gives you some sense of what you will find on each page and even reinforces some key messages.

I’ve said it before, things you don’t notice make a difference.

Related posts:

1. NIRI’s earnings guidance survey makes no sense
2. Survey: good service makes investors loyal

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