Everyone understands what navigation does. Which program to choose for the navigator. Benefits and Advantages

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Site navigation is the ability to move between its pages. The simpler and clearer the navigation system, the better for visitors, since it allows them to find the required information and quickly navigate through sections of the site.

How to make modern and convenient website navigation: basic requirements

We list the criteria for quality navigation:

• Simplicity – all elements or user interface should be clearly visible and intuitive for any user. Ideally, the user should need no more than 3 clicks to get to any page or section of the site.
• Accessibility on any page of the site – well-designed navigation elements must be present on each page of the site so that the user can move from any section to the required one.
• Graphic design – navigation elements should contrast with the background and differ from the main text, but at the same time be in harmony with the overall design of the resource.

When creating a website, its compliance largely depends on compliance with these parameters. further fate, since a project with inconvenient navigation will not attract users. Convenient navigation around the site is part of the work on usability - the ease of use of the site according to a number of basic characteristics.

Main types of site navigation

It is not necessary to place all the elements presented below on your site. From these, you can choose those types of navigation that will be useful specifically for your resource:

• Language– used on sites whose potential audience is multilingual. The user is asked to select the most convenient language in which the information will be displayed. For the most part, this type of navigation is implemented on the websites of various international organizations. Using language navigation allows you to avoid the need to create several identical sites with content in different languages.
• Main– links to the most important sections of the site, usually located in the menu. Most resources are limited to this, since it is suitable for small projects of a few dozen pages.
• Global– these are the links that should be visible from any page of the site, for example links to home page.
• Advertising navigation– it includes links located to attract customers to other resources or pages offering services or products. Such navigation can be either textual or graphic, depending on the designer’s intent.
• Thematic– this type of navigation includes links to sections related to topics. For example, similar publications on news sites. These can also be links under one article with the ability to go to the next or previous one. This clearly demonstrates an example of thematic navigation of a photo gallery, most of which will have links under each photo where you can view the previous or next photo.
• Content navigation– mainly used for internal linking of website pages for better search engine optimization. It looks like a link in the text of the page, directing to another resource or another section.
• Index finger– shows the user in which part of the site he is on this moment. Convenient for large portals and sites with many sections. This type of navigation allows the user to easily navigate large volume information.
• Geographical– used mainly for large websites or travel portals that need to clearly indicate the country, city or region to which the section in which the user is located belongs. This type of navigation is usually compiled with links to useful materials about the country or tourist attraction.
• Search navigation– in this case, you can enter the information of interest into the search bar (word or phrase), and the system will find materials on the site where this letter combination appears. Some portals are not limited to searching only on their site, but at the same time provide the user with information from search engines on a question of interest.

Depending on the topic, positioning of the site, as well as the amount of information on it, one or another type of navigation is selected. In some cases, options are arranged if necessary, but usually owners are limited to 1-2 types from those listed. The need to use one or another type of navigation is dictated mainly by the convenience for the visitor when searching necessary information.

Based on the type of implementation, all navigation can be divided into 4 types:

• Text– links to sections of the site or to external resources are presented simply in the form of text.
• Graphic– allows you to present navigation in a more attractive format. To create, drawn menu elements and buttons are used.
• HTML–using various forms, you can hide a cumbersome menu so that it appears only when you hover over the root folder. The use of such navigation allows you to significantly save space on the page.
• Java and Flash technology – this type of menu can be made more interactive and certain effects can be programmed when hovering the cursor or clicking on a link. This is the most difficult type to implement, but at the same time the most impressive looking.

Depending on the type of project being developed, the type of site navigation that is most appropriate to the goals and objectives is selected, allowing to achieve maximum convenience for the end user or to push him to the necessary actions.

Convenient website navigation is one of the conditions for high conversion

In order to get the desired action from the user or motivate him to go to the required page, a general assessment of the site’s usability is carried out. All aspects are taken into account, from the selection of colors to font sizes. Correctly formed navigation plays a significant role here.

It is already a proven fact that its convenience determines how many people who visit the site will stay on it, return to it again and add the link to their bookmarks. A well-thought-out navigation system allows you to retain and interest the user, as well as turn him into a regular site visitor or client.

The easier it is to work with a site, the greater the likelihood of repeated use, ordering a product, filling out a form, and making other transactions. useful actions.

It so happens that most sites have a unique design and structure. This leads to the fact that new users have to study the principle of the navigation device each time in order to get to the necessary information or complete their plan.

The task of the designer is to minimize the time a new visitor spends on such training and make the information as accessible as possible. The key to success in solving this problem is building the right navigation system.

Good navigation follows the following set of principles.

1. Simple and logical data structure

The user-friendly interface is based on proper organization data. Before taking on the design, it makes sense to think through the information architecture of the project in detail.

Data should be distributed across pages or screens in such a way that a new visitor, without knowing the full picture, can quickly assess how to get to the information they are looking for. To do this, first of all, it is necessary to build a logical hierarchical structure from the data set that was provided for in the project.

Hello Bikepost!
The season is coming and many are thinking about navigating on a motorcycle for long journeys. Having tried many options, I settled on one not the cheapest, but reliable option, which I will tell you about below.

The essence of this system is the phone and its mount, but since there is often no connection abroad, I use offline navigation. But why not just use your phone?! - you ask, and I will answer:

• You can change your personal phone quite often (you won’t choose one for each mount, because universal mounts are very inconvenient)
• What should I do if I receive a call or need to make a call? Navigation gets confused + you need to remove the mount, then put it back in place - this is not convenient if you don’t have a headset or the helmet is removed
• Often, personal phone is clearly higher than a used iPhone 5
• Losing/breaking your phone for navigation will not be as annoying as your brand new and expensive smartphone + in this case you will have a backup navigation option
• Having an extra camera phone when traveling is always good

• Terrible screen quality
• Huge body size and massive mounting
• Slow, unstable system and inaccurate GPS

• A productive device that won't let you down or freeze at the wrong moment
• Excellent screen that is visible even in the most difficult conditions
• Multimedia player
• Backup phone
• Backup camera
• Replacing the case without replacing the device

I hope that my experience will be useful to you. I drove with this system for 3 seasons and did not identify any objective disadvantages other than the price. Let me remind you that the essence of this system is good hardware, screen, mount, so if you find a really good mount for Android smartphones, share it in the comments, because Android smartphones may also carry the function of a computer board, but that’s a completely different story :).

A few photos from Google to give you an idea of ​​what such a combination looks like on a motorcycle.

Here is the final part of the “series” about popular car navigation applications for Android. In it, we tried to summarize all the information from five previously published reviews of individual applications and give a final assessment. In order not to burden the reader, we will try to do this in the most concise and clear form using tables, providing them with relatively small comments.

Why did you choose these particular applications? The main criteria were popularity and the presence of a large number of positive reviews, as well as ease of use. The updated Shturmann did not fit into the first two criteria a little. The “Seven Roads” application did not pass all three criteria. Google Maps as a navigator is still in beta testing. Megafon navigation is essentially the same as Progorod, but only in an online version. The iGO app has not yet officially appeared in the Android version. Therefore, there are only five participants.

Prices and popularity

Putting ourselves in the buyer’s shoes, let’s start by looking at price tags and studying information about how popular a particular product has gained among users.

* if you purchase a key on the developer’s website. The price is for the application itself with unlimited access to maps.
** rental of foreign cards.
*** for Europe the service is paid - from 12 euros per year.

So, the most expensive product is Sygic. It is aimed at European consumers, so the price tag is quite appropriate. In addition, you will have to pay separately for traffic jams and advanced information about cameras, but this all applies only to Europe. Network services do not work in Russia.

The prices of Navitel and Progorod seem to be the most adequate. However, Navitel has a very strict policy regarding reinstallation. Transferring the application to another smartphone will most likely not work at all.

Against the backdrop of all these restrictions, Yandex looks like a king. However, the application has a number of significant limitations, thereby leaving good chances for others.

Feature Set Comparison

The developers of most of the presented applications try to attract users with various additional functions, for example, the weather, photos on a map, articles from encyclopedias, social network tagging, displaying the location of friends, and even augmented reality.

We have summarized the entire core set of functions of all five applications in one table:

* only for European countries for a fee

This table is intended for self-study. Here everyone must answer the question for themselves whether this or that program has a minimum sufficient set of functions. For example, some people definitely need to work with tracks, while others need to install free OSM maps. Some applications also have extraordinary abilities. For example, displaying on a map photos of places taken by Panoramio users (from Sygic), or an augmented reality mode (Progorod), as well as speech recognition and voice commands (Yandex.Navigator).

The applications also have major flaws. Thus, Sygic does not have a function for displaying traffic (traffic jams), and Yandex.Navigator will not work fully in the absence of an Internet connection.

Interface

Since each of us has our own ideas about beauty, we will not talk much about which program’s interface is more beautiful. Our eyes found the “picture” of Navitel Navigator, Progorod and Yandex more pleasant. But this does not mean that the other two programs have any problems with “ appearance" They're all good. These just stand out a little from the general background.

But if you step back from looking at the “pictures,” then completely different properties of interfaces come to the fore - practicality and information content. The first of them is when you always feel at ease. All you need is a quick glance at the screen to get as much information as you need. A not very good example of practicality is the interface of the same Navitel - a jumble of thin lines and small details makes it difficult to read information while driving. Practicality also includes ease of operation with menus and search.

By information content we mean displaying various related information on the screen, such as the speed limit in a given area, information about cameras, etc. The presence of all kinds of tips and additional information in the POI database.

So, below we will provide screenshots of the interfaces of all programs with a short list of the main advantages and disadvantages. This time we will use a smartphone with a small screen resolution of 480x800, which is regulated by almost all software developers in today's test.

Let's start with the vertical map display option, which is the most natural for smartphones and more practical for navigation. Next to the usual map view we will place a 3D version.

Navitel Navigator 8.5

Progorod 2.0

Sygic 13.4

CityGuide 7.8

Yandex.Navigator 1.5

This is the junction of the Warsaw Highway and the Moscow Ring Road. Alas, the picture is static, and its perception while moving, when the scale of the map is constantly changing depending on the speed and upcoming events (turns), is radically different from what you will get simply by contemplating these two sets of screenshots. In addition, in 3D mode a lot depends on the tilt angle, which is adjustable in all programs. The developers have made it so that from one angle the map is beautiful and practical, but from another it is inconvenient to use, because the detail, perspective, etc. change. A similar remark can be made about scale. Therefore, we will give a verbal comment, but first we will post another portion of screenshots taken in navigation mode:

Navitel Navigator 8.5

Progorod 2.0

Sygic 13.4

CityGuide 7.8

Yandex.Navigator 1.5

Navitel Navigator

The picture deserves all the praise, but it is extremely impractical. The accumulation of a mass of small lines and contours makes it difficult to perceive the route line on the screen, which is slightly thicker than the road itself, but with busy traffic jams is in no way different from it in color. Camera icons, signs and other details are barely visible on the screen.

Progorod

The “Picture” is a little similar to Navitel, but there are fewer small details, and the route line is much easier to read than in the previous case. There are two complaints: the status panel takes up a lot of space on the screen and chaos reigns on it, as well as the graphics and all the control buttons are too small.

Sygic

In the screenshots, the interface is unimpressive, but from the point of view of ease of reading information while driving, it deserves the highest rating. There is one significant drawback - house numbers are not displayed in navigation mode. They only appear if you try to scroll the map in one of the directions, which will switch it to viewing mode.

CityGuide

The map interface is quite good in practical terms. It may not be as beautiful, but it is quite comfortable.

Yandex.Navigator

Trying to find fault with the Yandex.Navigator interface did not work out well. He is very practical. The only issue is that users of platforms with screens with a high pixel density per inch complain about small buttons and other elements in the menu. For some reason, these UI elements did not fully comply with Google's developer guidelines, and programmers were working with absolute units of element sizes instead of relative DP and SP.

Well, for those who for some reason prefer the horizontal position of the map, we will post another set of screenshots.

Navitel Navigator 8.5

Progorod 2.0

Sygic 13.4

CityGuide 7.8

Yandex.Navigator 1.5

Cards

Alas, most developers do not indicate detailed information about your cards, since compared to competitors they may not look so brilliant.

We tried to collect as much information as possible and summarize it in one table. Pay attention to the line “Map online” - this is your chance to independently evaluate the quality of coverage. True, it also does not entirely accurately reflect the situation. Navitel and Progorod do not have the latest release online, while Yandex’s maps in the app and online are strikingly different in places, which sometimes causes confusion.

*data from Foursquare is also used as POIs
** the volume of the full map of Moscow is indicated
*** The map of Russia is updated almost every month, but changes in it each time concern a couple of separate areas. If we take, for example, the map of Moscow, it is updated twice a year.
**** Ukraine, Belarus and Türkiye are mentioned. There is no longer a word about Turkey in the company video, and only Ukraine appears on Google Play. However, in the list of maps for download you can find, for example, a map of Almaty.

According to the results of the 2010 census, the number of settlements in Russia was just over 153 thousand and about 20 thousand of them do not have a permanent population. Where did Yandex get 170 thousand from then? Firstly, nesting. A specific settlement always belongs to other territorial units. Secondly, the census does not take into account all types of settlements. Railway stations, winter huts, etc. may fall out of it.

So, our leaders, apparently, are Navitel and Yandex. The volume of cards is an indirect indicator. In Yandex.Navigator it has such unimaginable values ​​because these maps contain a huge number of raster images.

As for the details, this issue is complex and requires a lot of time to study. For our own understanding, we took several settlements and looked at how things stand with this issue.

The leaders were Navitel, Progorod and Cityguide. Moreover, the maps of Progorod in almost all settlements from the table have buildings not only with corresponding contours, but also with height. Although CityGuide is good (OSM maps are used), you will have to search for maps of the regions you need in a large list and download them separately, which is not very convenient. For some reason, you can’t download the entire map of Russia at once. In addition, the Kamchatka Territory was not on the list.

Yandex.Navigator surprised me a little, and this considering the fact that the online browser map is beyond praise. At the same time, it is very funny that in the same Bogoroditsk you can indicate the exact address, it will be marked with a marker on the map and a route to it will be built. But the "last mile" will not be displayed correctly.

Well, Sygic doesn’t like small towns the most. He knows them only by hearsay.

The issue of map relevance is also important. Here we were guided by the map of Moscow, noting the presence of new well-known roads, overpasses and interchanges, opened in the summer-autumn period of 2013. Progorod, Cityguide and Yandex had no problems with this. Navitel had all the junctions and overpasses we were looking for, but for some reason at the intersection of Yaroslavskoe Highway and Malyginsky Proezd there was no turnaround under the overpass. But Sygic's map is at least a year old. We did not find any of the required road objects on it.

Our selection by cards: Navitel, Progorod and Cityguide.

Routes and navigation

All applications build quite adequate routes. And this is the most important thing. Navitel has some minor glitches. We described one of them in detail, but there is no reason to panic here. But it’s definitely worth reducing the sensitivity to traffic jams in its settings for residents of megacities.

To save the reader time, we will collect information on routes and navigation into one table.

It will be most convenient to travel with Progorod, Cityguide and Navitel. Sygic, despite its very practical interface, works only in offline mode: no traffic jams or DPOI. In addition, his logic of behavior when the driver leaves the route is far from civilized. But there are no less problems with Yandex: it will not warn you about speeding, it will only tell you about the camera when you drive past it, and without a connection to the Internet, search and route planning will not work in the application! But before starting navigation, it will offer the user alternative route options, which can be viewed on the map and the most suitable one can be selected. Progorod can do this too, although it uses a slightly different logic. We really liked both of these features.

Our choice: Progorod and CityGuide. With some stretch - Navitel and Yandex.

Tests

We've run a series of tests to show how fast these apps will run on different mobile platforms. In a separate table we have summarized the results obtained on two systems, the main characteristics of which are as follows:

Both platforms are budget, but the tablet has a 4-core SoC, while the smartphone has a single-core SoC, but with a more modern architecture. Will there be any significant difference between them? In the table, smartphone and tablet data are separated by two vertical bars.

* the dash indicates the time of laying two routes: from the south of Moscow to the city of Olenegorsk in the Murmansk region; the second route is to Vladivostok.
** already two seconds after loading you see your approximate position on the map, determined by signals from base stations and their coordinates. And after another 20-30 seconds the device “clings” to the satellites.
***routes are calculated on remote server, and the construction time depends on the quality of communication at a particular point in time. In GPRS or EDGE coverage area it may take a minute or more, but with good connection - 2-3 seconds.
**** The first digit indicates the traffic volume in the case of a pre-loaded full map of the region. The second digit indicates an empty card cache.

So, the main problem application performance - inability to use all available computing cores of the SoC. And although multithreading is declared by almost all developers, in practice on a 4-core system this results in one core being loaded at 100%, the second at 30%, and the other two cooling down. The only exception is Yandex. The application not only has low requirements for system resources, but also, when actively running on four cores, can show a total load of 60-70%, which indicates that someone is still able to create multi-threaded applications (benchmark developers are not check).

If we talk about the smoothness and comfort of working with the map, then Yandex, Cityguide and Sygic behave quite well, which cannot be said about Navitel and Progorod. Scrolling the map and scaling occurs with noticeable jerks, slowdowns and jerks. Moreover, if your smartphone has a resolution of 1280 pixels or more, the situation will worsen regardless of the type of SoC installed in the system.

Our choice: Yandex, CityGuide and, probably, Sygic. The latter takes a very long time to build routes, but otherwise is very smart.

Application Features

Since the competition is great, developers try to add a few highlights to their creation, and it would be a shame not to mention them.

Navitel Navigator

Progorod

Here we will only note the augmented reality mode, which will work quite well on those devices that have an orientation sensor.

Perhaps it will come in handy when traveling by car.

Sygic

Sygic tries to attract users with all sorts of useful and interesting little things: universal search, photos on the map from Panoramio, POIs from Foursquare, articles from Wikipedia (if they have a link to coordinates), a sidebar and a trip computer. All details in the corresponding .

CityGuide

Nothing unusual.

Yandex.Navigator

The main trump card is a universal search with a speech recognition system and voice commands, which works quite well.

Results

So, the most mentions marked “our choice” went to CityGuide and Progorod. Navitel, Yandex.Navigator and Sygic are lagging behind. But if we evaluate applications by their main functions (the quality of maps and the navigation process), then the following three leaders emerge before us: Progorod, CityGuide and Navitel. The cheapest of them is Progorod. The most expensive is CityGuide. And Navitel will receive the title of the most unfriendly due to the impossibility of transferring the application to other smartphones.

If you live in one of the Russian megacities, there is reliable and high-quality cellular If you are not afraid of speed cameras and prefer not to spend extra money, then you can use Yandex.Navigator. It's free. Moreover, it works quickly and has a practical interface.

Sygic can be useful when traveling abroad. However, it will not be cheap at all. In this regard, Navitel is many times more attractive, but it will not contain information about traffic. Just like Sygic in Russia.

P.S. Better to see once than hear a hundred times. Therefore, we encourage you to try out the apps you like and draw your own conclusions. But at the same time, it is important not to forget that all navigation programs, without exception, after they are removed through the application manager, leave almost all of their files in internal memory phone forever, “freezing” hundreds of useful megabytes. Don’t forget to delete them manually later, based on the names of the folders on the drive. Oh, Android, Android...