A short guide to navigation design

Teams tend to reach for this after something has already gone wrong. Everything we would tell a client about navigation design in the time it takes to drink a coffee.

The measurable part of design is whether people can find what they came for and act on it without hesitating. It is worth deciding this deliberately rather than inheriting whatever the last person set up.

What it costs to ignore

Seven or fewer top-level items keeps a menu scannable. None of that requires a large budget, only a decision and someone to own it. It rarely shows up as a line item, which is exactly why it slips.

Where to start

Label links by what people want, not by your org chart. In practice this is a scheduling problem more than a technical one. Check it against what you would want a competitor's site to get wrong.

Warning signs

A visible current-page state prevents visitors getting lost. In practice this is a scheduling problem more than a technical one. It rarely shows up as a line item, which is exactly why it slips.

The short version

Design decisions are the ones clients feel most confident arguing about, which makes it worth separating taste from evidence early. Three things worth confirming about navigation design before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• A visible current-page state prevents visitors getting lost — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

The point is not perfection, it is knowing which of these you have consciously chosen to skip.