Sensible Website Content Navigation

When building a website, many decisions come into play that affect the overall project, including information architecture, design, coding and testing, and more. Because there are so many facets of development to consider, the basics can often be overlooked. One of these basics is clear content navigation.

The goal of any website should ultimately be to assist its visitor in accomplishing their purpose in the most logical, intuitive way. Because the purpose of most websites is to present content to their visitor, it is imperative to streamline the path to it.

Jeffrey Zeldman wrote in his book, Taking Your Talent to the Web that all content should be accessible to the user within Three Clicks, or the visitor will get frustrated and leave. While this is a reasonable assumption, it isn’t necessarily accurate. I’m in favor of anything that helps web developers focus on streamlining their navigation, but a recent study shows that users don’t mind clicking to get their content, as long as it’s logical and quick.

Humans have an incredible ability of grouping and categorizing data. We need to recognize that people use these skills to both construct and deconstruct information, and then determine what task they will be performing at our sites.

For example, when building something, we take inventory of the resources that are available, group them into their functional classifications, then assemble them as needed. This is a constructive task. Even though many people use websites to gather information that will be later grouped and assembled, the actual process of information gathering is not constructive, but deconstructive. For this reason, we should present our content in a logical way that aids the deconstruction process.

To do this, we present content from a macro- level to a micro- level. Present information in their major, logical categories first, and let the visitor to our site perform their natural process of deconstruction. They will continue to click and break down the hierarchy until they reach their desired level of content… as long as it’s presented in a logical manner that lets them drill down quickly.

Some sites try to float everything they think is important to the top page of their site, with the intention of assisting the user in finding what they need. This method of content presentation only adds unneeded confusion and complexity to the site’s navigation and layout.

While it is sometimes helpful to bring important, or frequently used information up to the main page of our site, this should be the exception rather than the rule. Otherwise we will quickly clutter our page with content that is relevant to some, but useless to others.

Let visitors use their innate ability to search and deconstruct, and aid them by using clarity in navigation, and logical breakdown of topics and categories.