Every entrepreneur born after 1980 will at some point be involved in the creation of a website. It doesn’t matter if you’re creating an organic farm or the next Google. (For those of you that are creating the next Google, you can probably skip this post… But you wont! You’re creating the next Google. You love this stuff!)

It’s inconceivable in today’s world that you could operate any business but a laundry or a bodega without the means of a website. Yet, there are a surprising amount of people who have to design a website with no absolutely no idea as to how they are built.

Remember those organic farmers? They don’t want or need to know know what your algorithm does, how you hacked IE6, or how many coffees it took to pull it off at 4:30am. What they should know, or need to know, is why you put that option there, why that button takes you to that screen, and well, possibly a little bit about that algorithm.

Just as we’ve taught students to read and write in order to communicate for themselves in the ink and paper world, today’s world requires that everyone understands the way a website is created — at least the front end.

Designing Web Navigation by James Kalbach is the perfect book for this group. It’s a great book for anyone working with websites with tons of great references, but those of you who aren’t looking to create the next Google will find the book especially helpful.

This book introduces you to the way you a user orients themselves and navigates through your site. It focuses on the tools that will allow you to create a site that caters to and supports your users. It touches on the way the site is built, but doesn’t get bogged down in the unnecessary details.

For a preview, check out the table of contents:

Part 1: Foundations of Web Navigation

• Introducing Web Navigation
• Understanding Navigation
• Mechanisms of Navigation
• Types of Navigation
• Labeling Navigation

Part II: A framework for Navigation Design

• Evaluation
• Analysis
• Architecture
• Layout
• Presentation

Part III: Navigation in Special Contexts

• Navigation and Search
• Navigation and Social Tagging Systems
• Navigation and Rich Web Application

The book takes the website beginner through the conception of the site, structure, and how to flesh out the details that will frame the way the user interacts with the site.

The final chapter devoted to tagging seemed a bit like an after thought, but that may be due to my prejudice against tagging. It leads to a quicker way to visually summarize a lot of content, but I’ve never found tagging to be particularly useful for navigation.

I think books like Designing Web Navigation can help bridge the divide between developers and subject matter experts. There’s an education that needs to happen on both levels and I think this book is a great place to start meeting each other in the middle.

Even better for you non developers, by learning how to think about websites, you’ll have something to talk about when those Google guys want to hire you.

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