Knowing where you´re going : Navigation solutions in responsive web design

Abstract: By making a website responsive, its layout and content will adapt to the screen size, no matter if the website is visited from a smartphone or a computer. Designing for a small screen is about compromising since it is only possible to show fairly little content at a time, but still take account for the user experience. One aspect that heavily relies on screen size is navigation on the website. Within this project, different navigation solutions for responsive web design are examined and a suitable pattern is implemented on an existing website. A usability test with seven participants measured the user experience of the implementation. The design resulted in one navigation pattern holding for the main navigation and a combination of two patterns for the sub navigation, and this design was rated 2,39 on a scale 1-7 where 1 is the best in the usability test. It is hard to measure the navigation system on a website without measuring the overall layout as well, which could influence this result. Interview questions in the end of each usability test session regarding the navigation showed on the other hand that finding the needed information was in general considered an easy task, but the tasks including the sub navigation was harder than those only requiring the main navigation.