Top and left navigations are typical on large screens, but lack of screen real estate on small screens makes for an interesting challenge. As responsive design becomes more popular, it’s worth looking at the various ways of handling navigation for small screen sizes. Mobile web navigation must strike a balance between quick access to a site’s information and unobtrusiveness.
Here’s some of the more popular techniques for handling navigation in responsive designs:
Top Nav or “Do Nothing” Approach
The Footer Anchor
The Select Menu
The Toggle
The Left Nav Flyout
The Footer Only
The “Hide and Cry”