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A navigation bar should expose the destinations people need most and show where they are now. A short marketing site may suit a top bar; a workspace with many repeated tasks may need a sidebar; a deep catalog may benefit from grouped links and search. Choose the structure from the task and content hierarchy before choosing its visual style.
The broader navigation design principles explain labels, current-page states and finding routes. This guide focuses on eight navigation patterns, how to choose between them and how to adapt the existing Pixso examples to your own interface.
1. What is a Navigation Bar?
Before diving into visual layouts, it helps to answer: what is a navigation bar?
A navigation bar is a designated region on a website or application interface that displays links to primary pages or content categories. It acts as a visual roadmap guiding users across different sections.
Common placements include:
- Top navigation bar (positioned across the upper header)
- Sidebar navigation (aligned along the left or right edge)
- Bottom navigation bar (common in mobile app interfaces)
- Sub navigation (including submenus and breadcrumbs)
The term navigation bar style refers to both visual presentation and interaction behavior. This includes layout structure, visual hierarchy, typography, hover states, and animation effects. It determines how users interact with your site from the moment they land on the page.
2. 8 Common Types of Navigation Bar Styles
Different digital products require tailored navigation bar design choices. Whether you are building an enterprise portal, an ecommerce storefront, or a creative portfolio, choosing the right layout improves usability and content flow. Here are 8 popular types of navigation bar patterns used in modern web design.
(1) Horizontal Top Navigation
Horizontal top navigation is a classic navigation bar style. Placed across the header, it makes primary links visible without opening a panel. It may scroll with the page or remain sticky; horizontal placement does not imply fixed positioning. Users can access core pages from anywhere on the site.
This straightforward layout works well for websites with concise page hierarchies, such as corporate sites, blogs, and marketing landing pages.
(2) Dropdown Menu Navigation
A dropdown menu extends the horizontal top navbar. An explicit control reveals links within a category. Support click, touch and keyboard activation; hover alone is not a dependable way to make destinations reachable.
A dropdown keeps related choices near their parent label. It is useful when a group is too detailed for the top bar but still small enough to scan as a short list. Keep the parent destination and its expand control distinguishable when they perform different actions.
(3) Mega Menu Navigation
A mega menu is an expanded dropdown panel that displays multi level navigation categories simultaneously. Instead of a single vertical list, mega menus utilize wide panels that organize links into columns, often featuring icons, images, or promotional badges.
A mega menu can expose several meaningful groups at once, such as product types and use cases. Use descriptive group headings and a reliable open-and-close interaction. A wide panel is not useful if its links are still grouped by internal company terminology.
(4) Vertical Sidebar Navigation
Vertical sidebar navigation resides along the left or right screen edge. Some sidebars offer a compact mode, but icons alone may be difficult to distinguish. Keep labels available and clearly separate the currently selected destination from a group that is merely expanded.
This layout optimizes screen real estate, leaving the central region open for data dense content. It is widely used in complex dashboards, administrative panels, and SaaS tools.
(5) Search Bar Navigation
Search bar navigation centers around a prominent search input field. For large documentation hubs, technical blogs, and extensive ecommerce catalogs, a search driven navigation bar helps users jump directly to specific items by typing keywords, when they know a useful term. Keep browsing routes as well: visitors may not know what the site calls the topic, and a search can return no useful results.
(6) Full Screen Overlay Navigation
Full screen navigation covers the entire browser viewport when activated by a hamburger menu or trigger button. Main page content is temporarily hidden so users can focus entirely on navigation choices.
This immersive navigation bar style creates strong visual impact and is popular among creative agency sites, interactive portfolios, and luxury brand experiences.
(7) Breadcrumb Navigation
Breadcrumb navigation provides a secondary trail showing users their exact position within a site hierarchy. Typically separated by symbols like > or /, breadcrumbs allow visitors to step backward to parent categories effortlessly.
In a deep catalog, a trail such as Home > Electronics > Smartphones provides a route to broader categories. It describes hierarchy rather than the full history of the visitor’s clicks, and complements the global navigation.
(8) Footer Navigation
Footer navigation sits at the bottom of the page, accessible across all site views. Unlike top headers, footers offer generous space for secondary links without cluttering the primary viewport.
Designers use footer menus to organize supplementary links such as Privacy Policy, Terms of Service, Contact Info, Careers, and social media channels.
Choose a pattern for the task, not the screenshot
| What people need to do | Useful starting pattern | What to resolve |
|---|---|---|
| Compare a few major sections | Visible top navigation | Distinct labels that fit at realistic text sizes |
| Move repeatedly within a workspace | Persistent sidebar | Current location, hierarchy and room for the main task |
| Browse many related categories | Grouped dropdown or mega menu | Meaningful grouping and touch/keyboard access |
| Find a particular help topic | Search plus browsable categories | Unknown terminology, no results and a route back to the category |
Example: a help center with a developer section
Suppose a help center contains getting-started lessons, design guides, account settings and developer documentation. Three visitors arrive with different tasks: resize a component, recover access to a workspace, or find the plugin API. A generic “Resources” menu leaves all three guessing.
Use a top-level help navigation with concrete destinations such as “Design guides,” “Account and billing,” and “Developers.” Inside the developer section, expose the actual entry points—such as an API guide and a quick start—in a grouped list. Keep account help separate from product tutorials even when both contain the word “settings.”
On a wide screen, the current guide can have a section sidebar while the global bar remains compact. On mobile, reveal that section list with a labeled control such as “In Design guides.” Preserve the same labels and hierarchy; reducing “Account and billing” to an unexplained icon changes the information available to the reader.
Also design the first visit to an article from search. The article title, selected sidebar item and breadcrumb should agree. A visitor reading “Resize a component” should be able to reach the wider component guide without going back to the homepage, and opening the developer area should not erase the distinction between those sections.
Give reviewers tasks without reciting your menu labels: “Find out how to invite a colleague” or “Find the information needed to build a plugin.” Record the first destination chosen, any backtracking and the page they consider the answer. A wrong destination suggests a grouping or labeling problem; a hidden but correctly understood item suggests a visibility problem. Those findings call for different changes.
3. Inspiring Navigation Bar Examples and UI Templates
To help you kickstart your next project, here are 4 inspiring UI templates showcasing versatile navigation bar design ideas created in Pixso:
(1) The Ultimate Bottom Navigation Bar Component Pack
This collection shows bottom bars with icon-and-label combinations and active states. Use it to compare whether a small set of frequent destinations remains recognizable. Replace sample labels with the real sections of your app and check long names before choosing a variant; the screenshot alone does not establish compliance with a platform guideline.
Explore the bottom-navigation component pack
(2) App Navigation Prototype Animation Set
This set illustrates animated navigation states and different ways to reveal choices. First check whether the selected section stays clear before, during and after a transition. Use motion to explain the change, and prepare an equally understandable reduced-motion version rather than making an effect necessary for orientation.
Explore the navigation animation templates
(3) iOS Bottom Navigation Bar UI Design
The example places several bottom-navigation variants side by side, including light and dark treatments and a prominent central action. Decide whether that central element changes destination or starts an operation. A “Create” button is not a selected tab, so its visual and interaction states should communicate that difference.
Explore the iOS bottom-navigation variants
(4) Animated Mobile App Navigation Side Menu Bar UI
This side-menu example groups a profile area and a vertical list of destinations. Use it when readers need access to more sections than fit comfortably in a persistent mobile bar. Keep frequently repeated tasks easy to reach, and specify how the drawer closes and returns focus to its trigger.
Explore the mobile side-menu template
FAQ
Q1: Should a top navigation bar be sticky (fixed) or non sticky as users scroll down a page?
Sticky navigation keeps destinations available during scrolling, but takes space from the content. Use it when readers repeatedly move between sections. Test it at short viewport heights and with enlarged text, and ensure it does not cover the heading reached by an anchor link. A shrinking or auto-hiding bar is an additional behavior to validate, not a required default.
Q2: What is the UX difference between a mobile hamburger menu and a bottom tab navigation bar?
A bottom bar keeps a small set of destinations visible; a hamburger menu reveals a larger set after an extra action. Prefer visible destinations for frequent movement between peer sections. Use a drawer for a deeper directory when persistent tabs would crowd the screen. Neither pattern guarantees higher engagement: evaluate it with the tasks your users actually repeat.
Q3: How many primary items should be included in a top navigation bar design?
There is no universal five-to-seven-item rule for visible navigation. People can look at the available options rather than memorize all of them. Choose the number by the distinct destinations, label lengths, available space and results of findability tasks. Group related items when that makes the structure clearer, rather than hiding a useful destination to satisfy a number.
Adapt a navigation component in Pixso
Create the global bar, expanded panel and current-page state together. Reuse components and text styles, then place the same destinations in a wide layout and a narrow one. Use Auto Layout to compare long labels without manually moving every item, and connect the relevant screens in a prototype.
For the help-center example, start once from the help homepage and once from a specific guide. Review whether the user can reach the developer section and return to the guide without confusing global and local navigation. Add notes for the keyboard order, expanded state and dismissal behavior. The W3C disclosure navigation example provides implementation guidance; a visual prototype alone does not test those semantics.
Conclusion
Selecting the appropriate navigation bar style depends on your content depth, target audience, and product goals. From horizontal top headers to expansive mega menus, each navigation pattern serves a distinct purpose in guiding users.
If you want to explore more navigation bar examples and UI design resources, visit the Pixso Resource Community.
Use the patterns above to choose where navigation belongs, then make the real labels and states work in that space. Build and compare your navigation in Pixso.
