3 of 7 links on my navigation menu are external links to others websites (same company but other services/not the same domain). Those websites are not the core of the business. Linking a navigation menu item to external URL is not good practice, is it? how can I solve this?
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clear. I would like explain a little more the main problem. We are a travel agency but this last year we opened up an online insurance -and car selling- ecommerce (yes... we did a study of the market).Therefore, we can say that we have a wide range of services. Our website contains many links to other domains that don't share the same navigation menu nor the same style (colors, fonts, etc..).– LuisSep 15, 2012 at 14:51
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Car companies do this all the time. They often have the top menu as jumping points to multiple car brands owned by the larger parent company. There is no rule anywhere that states a link has to be in the same domain.– ReactgularSep 19, 2012 at 0:14
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Mathew, I agree with you but car companies do this because they only sell cars. By the way, do you think its good way to do it?.– LuisSep 20, 2012 at 23:14
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1The nav menu at the top of a website is "premium" space, by putting links there you are telling the visitor that these links are more important then those below them. That is all there is to it. If you feel they are this important, then by all means put offsite links there. It doesn't matter where the links go, only that you think the visitor should be able to find them quickly and easily. That's what the top nav menu is for.– ReactgularSep 20, 2012 at 23:35
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5 Answers
Navigation is always an interesting topic, and should be treated with care in each case. If you have a target group at hand, or a selection of your target audience – use them. You could use Card Sorting to find out what your users think of all your pages and links belonging. As a designer you are sometimes amazed how user group pages together into logical entities.
In your case, they might group all the external links into one logical entity and label it “External Resources”, then that would be your choice – adding an External Resources link to you navigation menu. The label could also be “Partners”, “Vendors”, “Manufacturers’” or the like.
But your users might also group in a different way, such as in sub groups. Let’s say you have Products as a top navigation item, and you have external links to the manufacturer of this particular product, then user might feel that this link should be on these specific product pages, way down in the navigation hierarchy.
It all boils down to how your target users group all your pages, and what your external links represent.
answered Sep 14, 2012 at 6:04
Have you considered adding an external icon such as the usual globe and chain link icon?
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If the websites aren't the core of the business I would never place them in the main navigation.
I might support the idea of external links in the navigation if the other sites have the same design and you could easily navigate between all websites.
I think that most users don't pay attention to the address bar unless they want to switch site.
When we send people to another site of ours, or another environment that is sufficiently different to cause confusion, we hit them with an alert in a lightbox.
This technique might work best with the visual cue method suggested by @TJH .
By using the icon on the link, and then carrying that icon through to the alert box, you help users who don't want to leave the current site to identify future external links.
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answered Sep 14, 2012 at 14:40
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I thought these annoying popups are for legal reasons, not that it would increase UX of majority people (even if some people, like me, get extremely annoyed) Sep 28, 2018 at 11:26
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Sure, people are generally bothered by those "Sign up for a free email newsletter" popups that appear a few seconds after landing on new site. Who wouldn't be? But when we test functional modal dialogs like the one described in my answer, that serve a meaningful purpose, and are a very common component of modern interaction design, we find that most reasonable users don't seem to mind at all. Most barely notice them. Some users, however, seem determined to be annoyed by features, even when they helpful, but we generally put this down to personality issues, rather than interaction design. Sep 28, 2018 at 14:32
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ah, I was talking about "The link you just clicked will take you to ..." in my first comment, that I felt surprised these can be considered helpful and not hated universally... I guess some of us have a "personality issue" that we already know where a link will go before we click on it, so having to read an unexpected message after the most trivial thing ever to do in a browser (click a link) might make us "determined to be annoyed" ¯_(ツ)_/¯ but as long as the middle click opens a new tab with the page without popup, we will be fine :) Oct 1, 2018 at 20:59
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I think you're missing the point here. This type of interaction isn't used for just any link in a menu, only those that take the user out of the current environment and into a different one. Ideally main navigation shouldn't contain external links, but when that is necessary, it makes sense to warn the user of this switch of environments. Oct 2, 2018 at 15:26
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The expectation is that while navigating a site, key elements like the navigation, typography, branding, etc. remain static. Dumping a user into a different environment (where these elements are different) with no warning leads to questions in the mind of the user like "Wait..what?" or "What just happened there?" or "Where am I now?". Good design is about avoiding this type internal monologue. Oct 2, 2018 at 15:33
Since the external links are not the core of the business, I'd recommend not placing them in the menu next to the core business links, but instead under one logical entity, like the previous answer suggested.
One reason to place it in the same menu I can think of, is from a charity organization: most of the content was just data that the user wasn't supposed to interact with, like articles etc. Then later was added one simple page where users could log in and view and update their information. That was in different domain but the link was placed in the menu. So essentially it was their core business, and there was only one item so it didn't became too confusing.
