Navigation Challenges

I'm on the verge of a major web redesign for my company, and my biggest problem is not content or figuring out what all our stakeholders want. What's really weighing on my mind is NAVIGATION.

Navigation is tricky and is the make or break of any site. So much is riding on a short list of words that in all actuality aren't very descriptive.

This article from Smashing Magazine offers some basic guidance and examples of "good" navigation, but there is a lot missing. The challenges of your navigation will go way beyond layout (although good design is key as well).

A few things you have to consider:
- What are the main categories of my links?
- Are there enough categories in which to arrange all my pages?
- Are the categories and link names universal or only internally relevant?
- Is it intuitive to click on A to get to B? (for secondary navigation)
- Does my primary navigation fulfill my audience's basic needs?
- Will I need to build upon (expand) my navigation in the future? (more challenging to do so with a horizontal format, generally)
-What's my competition doing, and does it work?
- What politics or legal issues may result from the wording used in navigation? (This always seems to be a roadblock for me)

There are no hard, fast rules for navigation. As with anything that falls in the marketing arena, you have to "know thy audience." What are they looking for and how do they use the web. If you know that and tailor your navigation to the audience's needs, you'll get the most benefit from your navigation structure.