In his Between Here and There: Navigation Design for Mobile presentation at Design for Mobile in Chicago IL, Ryan Unger outlined some high level considerations for mobile navigation design. Here's my notes from his talk:
- Every designer learned to read before they learned to design. We all have these fundamental navigation systems integrated in our psyche.
- You are used to the conventions of things you used before you started designing. You need to unlearn and approach the problem from scratch.
- Mobile users hate to follow the rules, they break them all the time.
- The number rule for navigation design: the three-minute rule. For every interaction you do –you were doing something for three minutes before and three minutes after. What is your user doing before and after? Where are people trying to get to? What is their reason for being there? How can you align navigation to what drove people to the site?
- Design navigation so that people can come in from anywhere. Because they will.
- Design for the home run. What is the one thing that will make a client successful? Design for that. Make it as easy as possible.
- Think about your audience base individually. Target a single user vs. all of North America.
- Always ask: would I use this? Top level litmus test on what you are doing.