Case Studies Number Three--cnn.com:Navigation

Three navigation systems are found on the home page and they are grouped clearly. The primary navigation looks more prominent than other systems. The reason is that all labels in primary navigation are capitalized and red color is assigned to them to attract audience attention. cnn.com's designers did this way because the primary navigation is the main connection between users and web contents. It directs users to different categories of news and information on cnn.com.


These navigation systems stay consistently on the page most of the time when I visit further levels of the site. I can tell they are navigation systems since they stay the same style, same position and same color themes as the home page.

Once I click one of the label links in the navigation systems, like ones in the primary, a red highlight block appears indicating me I am currently visiting which link. Furthermore, the highlight tells users their locations in the site.

I don't always know where I am in cnn.com. On most of pages in the site, there is no clear indication of where I am exactly at. The only thing I can tell is which categories I am in by looking at the primary navigation system's labels.







I know that as long as the cnn logo is there, I can always go back to the home page by clicking to it. However, I feel unsafe since there are no other ways I know I can go back to the index page in the site. I really think it is a bad thing when users lost themselves in the site while they are browsing.