Do you need all the menus? Put more navigation in the content field.
By Andreas Schjønhaug
People coming to your web site are looking for good content. No one likes nor cares about your website’s structure or navigation bars. To support this, you need to put more navigation into the content field of your web site.
Show your underlying and related content
User testing over the years has shown that people pay little attention to menus and go straight for the content. This behaviour suggests that the content field is where you should support the users’ need to navigate and drill further down into your content. When users do not find what they are looking for in the content field they try the menu or searching, as a backup strategy.
On the front page, use the content field to show some of the underlying content of your site. Let the content field tell what your site has to offer. You need to establish the users’ top tasks, find out why they come to your site and support them on your front page. By doing this, you will be able to show your content in a much better way than relying on primary navigation using the menu.
Direct.gov.uk is a great example of a site which uses the content field for navigation.
Remember, everything does not belong on the front page. There is simply not enough room for everything. You need to prioritise what is being exposed to avoid clutter. You also need to make sure that what you show on the front page answers to your users’ expectations. If you present the user with too many choices on the front page, they will have to invest a lot of time before deciding where to go. On the other hand, if you present fewer but broader choices, the users can quickly decide where to go. They have invested less time, and they feel that they’re on their way towards the goal.
Further down in the structure, show related content to what the user is looking at. The further down in the structure, the less interest for general information.
How to design efficient menus
So, does this mean that menus are useless? No, they still function as the backbone of your site, but do not put too much faith in the menus ability to support a site’s architectural framework. Remember that people are just as busy as you, and they are not interested in how you have structured your site.
To design efficient menus, realise that no one is interested in how your company is structured. Mirroring your internal structure is not the way to support your users’ needs. Find out what words they are looking for, and let those be the items in the menu.