So, now actually realizing the myth, and moving in the opposite direction particularly in website context, the movement has been actually to take a different approach and have lots of items in menus - mega drop down menus - which work well when neatly organized.
Don't get me wrong - the principle is still valid, but when the data does not fit sensibly around the rule, other approaches must be considered. Agreed, the number of links in a menu depends on context.
For example, the "scent of information" is greatly aided with good descriptive captions above menus lists of links. The better this caption is, the more links the menu can comfortably have, cognitively. That being said, less is better. Captions like "Quick Links" are simply deadly, they practically mean "don't bother to read this list because it is an unorganized jumble". Go as broad as practical as early as possible in the menu structure where 'practical' means you have the space to: simultaneously display all menu items arrange the items to support scanning and search display meaningful and distinct item names.
Kent Norman is the researcher most often associated with research on menus. This is from his summary of menu research. Consequently, designers found it necessary to reduce the breadth of the tree and increase its depth However, other research in human factors suggested that human processing was not the limiting factor.
People are quite able to read or scan long lists of items. Norman reviewed the assumptions concerning the rate of processing alternatives and the response time to make a decision and concluded that for lists of linearly organized arrays such as numbers, alphabetized lists, letters of the alphabet, and months of the year, one should increase breadth to the maximum practical level. In , a Wichita State student published research on breadth vs depth in hypertext structures which is related to this question.
The broadest structure was 12x Compared to some of the deeper structures, participants using this structure found the target with fewer errors and in less time. The icons that the user can interact with are gray, and upon hover they swap colors and display a helpful label explaining the interaction. In order to create a great navigation, the information architecture IA and hierarchy of the website must support it. The number of levels within a navigation is ultimately determined by the site hierarchy.
Ideally, the fewer levels people need to click through, the quicker and least confusing it should be for them to access what they want. Flat Hierarchy: Note that there are only 3 vertical levels and more sections on the second level. Deep Hierarchy: Note that there are up to 5 vertical levels and less sections on the second level. Most often, there are three or four levels of hierarchy for most websites.
To figure out the right number of levels, separate the current hierarchy into standalone, unrelated groups. This may require:. Consider also consolidating content or removing content, too. On the Big Spaceship website, note how the navigation is just a full-page, single list of links. The agency chose to deemphasize some navigation items by using a darker font color.
This utilizes the flat hierarchy while still including some prioritization! People should be able to quickly scan the navigation and understand which links are primary, secondary, and tertiary navigation items. The placement and grouping of the links should establish this hierarchy. The secondary navigation items are blue, thin, and a smaller font-size and upon hover an underline appears. Drop down menus may be annoying but if designed with the other best practices you mention, my bet is that feature will be the least of the issues.
Mega-menus are equally annoying when they overwhelm the viewer with too many options. After reading these tips, please take notice of the menu structure on this very page breaking the rules defined in the article. However, it appears from the comments that this originally appeared 5 years ago. A lifetime in internet years. What has changed as far as best practices for ?
I believe this is a great site, you are working great on the content and quality of this site at the same time. A client has a production co. My rule is to never link off your site in the main menu.
Your thoughts? Question: When it comes to listing Products in a mega dropdown, do you have any thoughts on listing product offerings by Manufacturer as well as Use Case eg. Any SEO pitfalls or caveats to this organizational approach?
Hello, searching for an answer to a clients question on sub menus has brought me to a few websites like this. They all say, drop down menus are bad, then go on to say only have a few top level menu items. So how do you accomplish this with that contradiction? Hello,i have a question,if i do not use dropdown menu,only category,how can i let the visitors find the sub links under the category quickly? Hi Andy. Useful information but you may wish to update the link juice calculator section as that that tool no longer exists on the link you shared.
Hi Andy! Thank you for sharing your insights! I am confused about the website navigation bar location. Would it be ok to have navigation in the website sidebar? Because my website has more categories.
It is not possible to keep everyone in the top. What is your thought on having navigation links that then bring you to another site? For example, my organization has an annual event and we have a separate site just for that event. Should our organizational site have a nav link to a page about the event, that then links to that other site, or directly to that other site?
We are having internal disagreements about this. I would really like to know why you do not mention anything about the Order of the links. I can surpass your serial position effect with larger, well designed links for the most frequently used or the links I want my visitors to see or use first.
When I view a list of links, I look to search them alphabetically unless one stands out by color or size. Neither the first nor the last entry stand out. And the longer the link list, the more I expect it to be in alphabetical order. But it needs to be said for those who do not know or refuted with an explanation of why alphabetical order is not important. This is true whether a pop down menu or a list of links to one side of the page.
So what is the industry standard regarding [alphabetical] link order? Share This. By Andy Crestodina. Keep the words you use in your menu relevant, accurate, and short.
That way both humans and search engines will easily understand them. This is a really easy way to fit more items in your navigation without clutter. Some pages might not be necessary at all. If you need help thinking through which pages are the most important, check out this post on the tips that will help you build your website. You could use it to direct more visitors to your About page, get them to make a booking, or let them call you with just one tap.
If you want to improve the flow and structure of your website, help people find what they are looking for, and simply make your site look better overall, some simple tweaks to your top navigation can really work wonders.
Give it a try on your website and let us know how it goes! Share on facebook. Share on twitter.
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