I am not a professional web designer but I have been charged with creating a professional web site. I do have at my disposal Macromedia Studio MX, Photoshop 6, and a decent understanding of the programs and how to put together a web site. My main problem is navigation. I work for a company with three different products the management want the site to look the same throughout and want the same colors throughout. They also want me to stick to a template that is currently on one of the products web sites, a left side menu...you know with the company logo in the upper left corner above the menu.

Right now my plan is to change the menu on the left depending on the product the user has decided to look at, and change the logo in the upper right corner to that of the product. The menu on the left will currently have links that read the same no matter what product they are looking at (i.e. FAQ, Screen Shots, Key Features, etc.)

My question is without changing the page colors do you think that the change of the logo in the upper right corner would be enough to keep users from getting lost, or should I rethink the whole thing?

P.S. I am designing the site for mainly older customers that are already intimidated by technology.

I realized that a link to what the site currently looks like might be helpful it is found at http://www.rezovation.com

I have been able to convince them to let me change the color sceme it is going to be blue but they are imoveable on changing it for each of the products They just won't let it happen.

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I can make a website....But can I make a GOOD website?

I don't know much about usability tips and such but I think having the company logo on the top left hand corner is the accepted norm on web pages... but wait a minute, you were talking about the product logo on the top-right which is useful I guess.

In addition to sticking the product logo to the top-right, you might want to be using an appropriate sized heading i.e. <h1></h1> tag towards the top of the article / content parts as well.

A line of breadcrumb links is also useful on top of the heading... e.g.

HOME > Rezovation Desktop > Key Features

Of course changing colours for different products is something I would also suggest but if your client is not convinced, you could alternatively convince them to allow you to publish a user survey on the issue for a while.

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J de Silva
Learning Journal | GIDForums™ | GIDNetwork™ | GIDWebhosts™ | GIDSearch™

The easiest way I can see of creating a template, but having totally different colours for different products is going to be by using an external CSS file. This means a lot less work for you when changing one to another.

Are you meaning the template has to be similar to the eLodging software pages?

Rob

No the RezOvation ones

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I can make a website....But can I make a GOOD website?

Think about it this way, how do people KNOW how to get back to the beginning where there are a choice of products?

Breadcrumbing is one of the most useful additions to any website as it allows users to orientate themselves. Think about most forums, Zeal and DMOZ organise it this way and people can get to where they want quite easily. However, as you stated you are designing for older customers intimidated by technology.

This article might be useful for you http://psychology.wichita.edu/optimalweb/structure.htm

There is some good general help here http://www.le.ac.uk/cc/www/design/usability/

But love him or hate him Jakob Nielsen is the man:
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/

Rob