Planning website navigation
Navigation can be very simple, or very complex. It can be horizontal, or vertical. It can be static, or it can follow you as you scroll down a page. Because navigation can vary so much between websites, there are no set guidelines or how-to’s for organizing navigation.
Designing navigation is an art in itself, and as designers we become better at it with experience. It’s all about using good information architecture: “the art of expressing a model or concept of information used in activities that require explicit details of complex systems.”
The best navigation designs and structures will allow your site visitors to reach the content they want to see in the least amount of effort and clicks. If they cannot get to where they want to be within a maximum of two clicks, you risk losing their business completely.
Organizing Navigation Structure
Perhaps the most difficult part about navigation on the Web is organizing and designing it. After all, coding it can be relatively easy. In this first section, we’ll go over some methods and best practices for organizing navigation, which can lead to a more intuitive user experience and higher conversion rates.
Primary vs. Secondary
Most websites, especially those with a lot of content or functionality, need navigation menus. But as a website grows in complexity, guiding users to that content and functionality shouldn’t be the job of any one menu. All of that content just doesn’t always fit in one large menu, no matter how organized it may be. While many websites need more than two, all websites have at least two main menus: primary and secondary.
You might assume that the primary and secondary navigations are marked in a wrong way on the image above, but I believe that this is not the case.
Primary navigation stands for the content that most users are interested in. But importance is relative; the type of content linked from the primary navigation on one website may be the same kind linked from the secondary navigation on another (for example, general information about the company or person).
Secondary navigation is for content that is of secondary interest to the user. Any content that does not serve the primary goal of the website but that users might still want would go here. For many blogs, this would include links for “About us,” “Contribute,” “Advertise” and so on. For other websites, the links might be for the client area, FAQ or help page.
The first job in organizing navigation is to organize the content. Only after the content has been organized can you determine what is primary and what is secondary, and then you can determine the location and navigational structure of any remaining content. Content that fits neither the primary nor secondary navigation can go in other menus, whether a sub-menu, footer menu, sidebar widget or somewhere else. Not to suggest that primary navigation cannot go in these areas of the page; there are many instances where primary navigation is best suited to the sidebar or in drop-downs.
Also ask whether navigation is even needed beyond the primary menu? If a secondary menu is needed, then why and what’s the best way to implement it? No matter how organized the content is, if there’s a lot of it and thus a need for a more complex navigational structure, then distinguishing between primary and secondary content can be daunting.
Grouped Content: Classification Schemes
When a lot of content is grouped in one category, another issue arises: what order to put it all in? Card sorting and similar methods may help to create groups and a hierarchy and to differentiate between top-level and sub-levels of navigation, but how should content within those groups be ordered? Alphabetically? By most used or most popular? Most recent to oldest?
Below is a list of the most common content classification methods, along with suggestions for what each is best for:
- Most recent to oldest
Suitable for time-sensitive content. - Alphabetical
Great for when the user needs to find something fast. This includes definitions, indexes and other content that users know about before they find it. - Most popular or most used
Great for interest-based browsing, rather than content that users need. - Geographical
Is certain content irrelevant to certain regions or sub-regions? - In the order of the process
If the content in some way represents a process (for example, “How to file your taxes”), then it could be organized according to the order of actions the user has to take.
Common Considerations
Navigation design is all about findability and usability. No matter how simple or complicated, navigation must work well for its users. Now we’ll look at some trends in navigation and how these designs might benefit or hinder websites.
Horizontal vs. Vertical
The decision of whether to make the navigation horizontal or vertical tends to be determined by the nature and focus of the website. Often, it’s a mix of both, but with primary navigation we see certain tendencies. Small websites often lean towards horizontal navigation at the top of the site, while large corporate websites often use both horizontal and vertical navigation (usually with drop-down menus). Blogs vary greatly; primary navigation (such as for categories or pages) is sometimes horizontal, while most of the other menus are vertical. On news website, the navigation is mixed, with no clear tendency either way.
A number of factors will influence the decision for horizontal or vertical navigation, including design, usability and density of content. Sometimes designers add icons to the navigation or add visual elements around it to make it better stand out. Rich typography is another common consideration: since the navigation is the most popular area of the website, it could be given a special typographic treatment to make the user experience a bit more distinctive and unique.
Amazon’s list of departments is much too long to go in a horizontal menu without looking crowded. Instead, across the top we find a search bar, which is a kind of navigation in itself. Many Amazon customers know exactly what they are looking for and so go to the search bar first; perhaps far more often than on other websites. Amazon puts its menu of departments along the left. Because the list is so long and varied, its purpose is chiefly for browsing; and vertical menus are good for browsing. The sub-menus, also vertical, help the user refine their browsing among departments and products.
While it is generally good practice to make simple primary menus horizontal, it’s not essential. Below are a few designs that use vertical menus for primary navigation, and pull it off. However, all of these websites have simple menus and fairly minimal design and content; websites with a lot of content could easily overpower vertical menus. Good/Corps (the first site below) is a nice example of how a quite large amount of information is presented in a very compact, even minimalistic way. Subsection are indented, providing users with a clear sense of hierarchy on the site.
Good/Corps
Stura TU-Chemnitz
Baltic International Bank
Analogue Digital
Cambrian House
Divensis
Mellasat
Debbie Millman
Of course, horizontal menus can work really well, too, and menus that follow best practices don’t have to be boring. In fact, combining horizontal and vertical menus is even a possibility.
Below is a small showcase of horizontal menus in action, at either the primary or secondary level.
Moody International
The Big Feastival
Web Standards Sherpa
Tijuana Flats
Unlocking.com
Cultural Solutions
Tinkering Monkey
JustBurns
Drop-Downs And Mega Drop-Downs
While horizontal menus are best for top-level navigation, larger websites often need more in-depth navigation. Drop-down menus can fit a lot of items in one space, thus saving valuable real estate and keeping the navigation organized. The hierarchy can be refined with sub-levels and even sub-levels of sub-levels, helping users filter the information to get to the page or section they want.
Even more useful are mega drop-downs, which can accommodate an even wider variety of content and layouts, but more importantly provider larger click areas for users. They can be used to better organize navigation, as well as contain more content while saving space. They are also a great place for additional features and otherwise non-essential content. In both cases it is important to clearly indicate that the drop-down menu is available, either by using arrows or icons or something else.
Below is a small showcase:
Aviary
Estee Lauder
Portero Luxury
Sunglass Hut
See how some of these menus are creative in their organization of content and navigation. Below are a few points to note:
- Much of the navigation the small showcase above is organized into categories and sub-categories.
- Many of the websites have a different layout and style for each drop-down menu under each top-level link. This creates more variety and creates the appearance of sub-pages under the main page of a design.
- Some of the websites have icons, images and regular text for link items; these elements could be used for promotion, navigation usability or simply organization.
These are just a few of the features in the drop-down designs above, but of course many more interesting solutions could be found. The point is that navigation is sometimes so extensive that sub-menus (whether via drop-downs or mega drop-downs) are necessary.
Conclusion
Navigation that is complex, whether because of content volume or membership considerations or something else, can add a lot of work to the design and development process. But with solid pre-planning and good organization, the work can be fairly easy. Organizing, designing and coding navigation can take many shapes, but there are definite trends to follow and resources to turn to for help at every stage.
Feel free to share other tips, examples and best practices related to complex navigation. There are probably many approaches to each stage of navigation development, and hearing about the practices and experiences of other designers and developers would be great.
Article courtesy of Smashing Magazine.
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