Navigation is the process of getting from point A to point B steering your way through or past a series of obstacles and alternate destinations. A part of this process is knowing about your current location. Where you are, here and now. This is also described as orientation.
Orientation
Relates to positioning on a map or landscape. Any journey has a starting point and a final destination. Melbourne - Sydney for example. As you travel on that journey, your location in relation to those two points constantly changes, until you arrive at the destination. A web site is no different. Most users want some sort of indication or feedback as to where they are, where they can go and where they started from.
Interface Buttons
Buttons are part of a graphic navigation system and can provide visual feedback as to what options are available. This can include the current location on the site and links to other sections. Buttons can be any shape or size and are determined by the visual theme chosen for the interface design. Buttons can have several "states" to provide feedback to the user. A series of buttons on a navigation system would typically have two or three different "states" depending on the structure of the web page.
Text Links
Although basic in nature, using text links is always a good idea, as it is part of the html page and will load straight away, acting as a back up navigation system should the image based navigation system fail to load. It can & does happen! Text can also be used as a way of indicating pathways, or the way in which the user got to the current page.
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