Lampre: Navigating by company

An adaptation of conventions preserves clarity and usability.

The Site

Lampre, an Italian pre-coated steel products and services group, structures the navigation of its website around its constituent companies.

The universal navigation links for the site are arranged in a tabbed horizontal bar at the top of pages immediately below the group logo. The five main tabs correspond to the divisional structure: Group, Lampre Italy, Lampre Portugal, Lamital and Lamfer (the bar is completed with Italian/English language options). Clicking a tab opens a section menu in the left-hand panel. This uses a common set of headings (modified for Group) but has content tailored to the selected unit (for example Contacts, History, Products and services). Sections are colour-coded – blue for Group, light grey for Lampre Italy etc. The careers link opens a group-wide jobs mini-site in a secondary window.

The Takeaway

Lampre has taken a thoroughly conventional navigation structure and adapted it to its own communications plan (“the importance of a coordinated company image”) without any loss of usability or clarity. While many financial services companies do something similar based on user groups, the focus on operating units is unusual.

Where most companies use their universal bar for services or corporate functions, Lampre bases its navigation on sections corresponding to its constituent companies and a common information structure that allows it to use the left-hand navigation to provide a standard mix of service and function headings. Although the latter is missing some of the usual elements (for example, corporate responsibility, investors), that is a reflection of Lampre’s agenda (it is, for example, privately-owned) rather than a weakness in the approach. The presentation of careers information in a separate window typifies a well thought out and executed system, neatly providing group-wide information while preserving the integrity of each section and the unit-related colour coding.

First published on 26 July, 2007