Web navigation design touches most other aspects of website development in some way, says author James Kalbach in the introduction of his book Designing Web Navigation. And, I agree with him entirely and was keen to read his thoughts on the subject.

Mr Kalbach is a human factors engineer at LexisNexis, a leading provider of legal and news information, where he develops interfaces for web-based search applications. He previously served as head of information architecture with Razorfish, Germany. So, I presumed he would know what he was talking about.

Delving into the Table of Contents I was pleased to see Chapter Headings like:

• Foundations of Web Navigation
• Framework for Navigation Design
• Navigation in Special Contexts
• Accessibility and Internationalization

It all sounds very high tech but basically the book goes into detail about why website navigation is important and lists the author's recommendations about designing your own navigation. Because good navigation doesn't just take a visitor from one page to another, it also tells them where they are at all times (orientation). According to research, location information helps people navigate and should answer the three questions ... Where am I? What's here? Where can I go from here?

The Chapters break down into readable sections and I really like Mr Kalbach's writing style, he's easy to understand and makes a lot of sense. I especially liked the section on "Mechanisms of Navigation" and his detailed explanations on "breadcumb trail" style navigation and visualization mechanisms. Not discounting the rest mind, just dived into these pages with a little more enthusiasm.

This book was a definite treat for me, loads of information from an experienced interface developer, laid out in a clear and precise manner, lots of great and meaningful imagery throughout the full colour layout ... lovely.

The target audience is anyone really, as this book is about design principles and not about programming. As the author says "When did 'web design' become equated with programming?" Web Design professionals, home enthusiasts, IT Managers, Managers in general, your 14 year old neice or nephew or your 80 year old grandparents could all read this book and gain some insightful knowledge about website navigation design.

My favourite line? ... "even the coolest site will fail if the navigation is poor". A double thumbs up from me, it's a great book.