When navigation design is worth the effort

This is one of those topics that looks small until it costs you something. Navigation design is not free, and pretending otherwise leads to bad decisions.

Consistency is the quiet half of design work: it rarely gets complimented, and its absence is noticed immediately. If it only works because one person remembers to do something, it does not work yet.

When it is worth it

Seven or fewer top-level items keeps a menu scannable. Small and consistent beats large and occasional here. It is worth deciding this deliberately rather than inheriting whatever the last person set up.

When it is not

If nothing downstream depends on it and nobody is complaining, it can wait. Getting it slightly wrong is survivable. Ignoring it entirely is not.

How to decide

A visible current-page state prevents visitors getting lost. Getting it slightly wrong is survivable. Ignoring it entirely is not. Budget a little time for it every quarter and it never becomes a project of its own.

How to tell if yours is fine

The measurable part of design is whether people can find what they came for and act on it without hesitating. Three things worth confirming about navigation design before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• Seven or fewer top-level items keeps a menu scannable — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

If you want a second opinion on how yours is set up, ask.