What’s Going On In Your Header?

The header is the first thing people see when they arrive on a site. Simply because, in our culture, we have learned to read from top to bottom and also to place the titles, i.e., the main information, at the top.

Looking at what is presented in the upper part of a website is a natural reflex that we have more or less learned to fight: we pay less attention to the headers of the sites we are used to visiting.

But we remain very attentive to those new pages that we discover. So let’s find out what is needed to make the header unforgettable and worth users’ attention.

Make it visible

So the header appears first. But there’s more to it than that: it must stay in the first place.

A well-constructed header remains anchored at the top of the browser window, even when it is scrolling.

The goal of this approach is always to leave the information the user may need within reach. Don’t forget that a website design process must be user-first and study some cool website header examples to get inspired.

Add Useful Info

In your header, you have, of course, thought of integrating the name of your company, even its logo. This allows you to always remember that it is your site at any stage of the navigation.

But you should also ask yourself what will be useful to the visitors of your page. This could be:

A contextual menu for the different sections of your site
Contact information
Links to your social networks
An internal search engine
A link to a download or purchase page
A newsletter registration field
Your slogan, etc.

Manage the Space

As we have seen, there can be a lot of links and components in a header. If you consider them essential, there are several ways to keep these without making them intrusive.

wanna read : A Definitive Guide to Content Types and Why to Use Them

You can:

Opt for a hamburger menu: everyone has now learned to recognize those three little lines that signal the presence of a menu to be scrolled. This tool will save space and allow you to redirect users according to their choices.

Develop two versions of the header: a complete one, which is displayed when you arrive on the page or when the mouse moves over it, and a more compact one, which only includes the elements at the top. This is a header that is deployed only when people need it.

Plan headers adapted to the different sections of your site. The main part should always remain the same, for an effect of unity, but the second part can be deployed with different information.

When you build your header, remember that the audience’s attention on the Internet is limited. Beyond four or five different concepts in your header, you will lose everyone’s interest.

Be efficient… which does not prevent you from having fun and surprising people with a few more original presentation options!