I’m going to be doing a series of articles called “webcomic website must-have’s,” focusing on things that experienced webcomickers OUGHT to know, but the professional just beginning a web-career might overlook, or even experienced webcomickers might not consider important.

So, the first article is about comic navigation.  Your comic archive should ALWAYS contain links, above AND below the comic* to the following: first comic, previous comic, next comic and last comic. Few things annoy a new reader more than being unable to go back to the first comic (as in, your site only has previous/next), or being unable to get OUT of the archive with a last/today comic button.

Many choose to present these buttons linearly, in order, as you might see on any ComicGenesis site (ex, my mirror site). Some choose to put buttons on the sides of the comic too, or even on top of the comic itself (hover on the left and right sides.)  Regardless of where the buttons are, they need to exist in a recognizable, easy-to-access-and-click form that, if not presented “normally” should still be analogous to what people are already accustomed to. For example again, Chasing the Sunset has a second set of navigation buttons beneath the comic on the left (see the little eyeball like thingies?). Whether or not some might consider a second set of buttons as redundant I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter for this article. The first time I read the comic, I used the small set of buttons because I was unaware I could click the left and right sides of the comic itself. :3 Now I find I rather like clicking a large area instead of using my cursor to find the small “next” button.

I’m getting off topic here, however. If your site features an odd type of navigation (non-recognizable signs if buttons are wordless, or simply something “innovative”), you need to provide some sort of short, informative directions, much as Zuda does, or make it obvious in the order they are presented.

One of the few gripes I’ve heard about ComicPress is that the basic format does not allow for the first/next/prev/last navigation. Instead, you have a “previous” button up top in the SITE navigation, and then a “first” and “previous” link in the BLOG navigation.  I understand the aesthetics for this, but functionality and ease-of-use should always win over stream-lined looks when it comes to a webcomic website.  The good news is that there is a now a easy modification for this to install on your own ComicPress site! Read this post in the CP help forum to learn more (and implement as soon as possible :P)

Some other features to consider adding to your site that are related to this issue:

• if your homepage does not display your comic, you need to DEFINITELY have obvious links to the archive and the latest comic.  The latest comic link needs to have a date, and if is an image, should be updated with every comic update.  I say “should” because it’s not as important as providing the date of your latest update. You should also strongly consider adding a link to your FIRST comic on a homepage that does not display a comic.
• always have a link to the archive and the home page inside of your comic archives. Don’t make people work harder to get where they want to be.
• if you have a ComicPress site, make sure your archives are by page title (designated with chapter and page number also), or hard-code it by chapter, linking to each page separately. For the previous, if you do not provide page titles (and are using the date default), it means absolutely NOTHING to someone browsing through, trying to find a specific page.  The second clause holds true whether or not you are using ComicPress.

That’s it for today!

*comic navigation above and below the comic is only necessary when the comic causes a vertical scroll in 800×600 resolution. I say 800×600 because even though it is basically already phased out by 1024×768, when people have tabbed browsing and the bookmark sidebar up in their browser, your site will get squished into something resembling 800×600. If they have to scroll to read the whole comic, and then scroll back UP to your comic navigation, you need to fix that. Reading your comic should be a pleasure, not a chore for the pointer finger and scroll wheel.