What website navigation?
Navigation systems are often the backbone of a website, guiding users and helping them on their way.
It’s tempting to make a navigation do lots of things, hoping to help everybody and achieve every user need. Very few websites achieve this and maintain a good user experience.
Directions for a navigation can include:
- Presenting offering to a new audience
- Catering for existing customers
- Showcasing exact features/benefits
- Showing specific business areas/teams
If your navigation has multiple links focused on two or more of these directions, it could be a multi-tasking navigation!
Why is it important that your navigation is easy to follow?
Humans find comfort in patterns and being able to predict what’s next. Making your navigation multi-task leads to confused grouping and unpredictable patterns.
This leaves users overwhelmed and disorientated, leading to them abandoning both your navigation and your website.
Giving your navigation a single, clear direction means it’s more likely to be understood and interacted with. It’s important to strike a balance as too minimal a navigation can leave users unsure, while too much can overwhelm.
How can I measure how effective my navigation is?
Assess what your website’s navigation, is actively doing and if it has multiple, confused directions.
Use data to understand whether your navigation is serving and helping your users, or whether it is causing confusion. This could be done with tools such as Google Analytics and Hotjar.
If you need support in making your navigation more intuitive, get in touch with our team today.
