You don’t need a Home link on your navigation, provided your logo or company name is linked to your home page.
Keeping your navigation menu as simple as possible makes for a better user experience, and one easy way to minimize navigation is to remove the home page link. This assumes, of course, that you’re linking to your home page from your logo/company name on every page of your site.
In effect, your logo/company name is an extension of your navigation menu.
This site’s navigation feels a bit crowded. Typographic issues aside (all uppercase takes more room), space could be saved by dropping the Home link:
However, they would first need to link their company title to their home page – which it isn’t at the moment.
Some people argue that it’s bad for users not to have a home link on the navigation, but I think most people today understand that you can click on a logo or company name to get to the home page. They get frustrated when the logo isn’t linked. So no matter what your take is on home links, you should still be linking your logo/company name!
If you do insist on having a home link on your navigation, one solution is to use a small icon. For this site, they’ve used both an icon and the words “home page,” wasting space on a navigation bar that’s pushed to the limit already. Why not just the home icon, if anything? They have just a shopping cart icon for their store…
Or, as I argue, why have any home icon at all, since their logo is linked.
What’s your take on home links in the navigation menu?
What's Your Take?