When You Should Use a Sticky Navigation Bar

Understanding the design trend

The navigation bar of an interface is a special place. It’s where users go whenever they need to change the content they’re viewing. 

However, the navigation bar is usually out of reach when users scroll deep down the page. The user must scroll back up to access it, which requires time and effort.

A solution to reducing the user’s scrolling effort is to make the navigation bar sticky. This technique sticks the navigation bar to the top as the user scrolls. As a result, the user can always change content no matter how deep they scroll.

However, there are instances when a sticky navigation bar isn’t necessary. You don’t need one if you aren’t displaying much content deep below the page fold. If users need to scroll back up, it won’t take much effort on a shallow page.