7 navigation principles for mega menus
June 18, 2012 at 8:08 am | Posted in best practice, beta testing, intranet, navigation, usability, user testing | 2 CommentsTags: best practice, beta testing, intranet, navigation, usability, user testing
Many organisations are are planning to or already use mega menus on their intranet to help employees navigate to the information or tools they need to use. I have been involved in developing several mega menus based on different business needs while helping with SharePoint 2010. Some have been more successful than others at giving a great user experience……….and that’s what you are really aiming to achieve.
People need to be confident wherever they are in the intranet and with what they need to go and do next. I believe some navigation principles help you decide if a mega menu is for your intranet.
Navigation principles for mega menus
- It helps people get to what they need more quickly.
- The headings are consistently placed in the same position on every page.
- The headings are specific and clearly labelled to avoid any confusion or hesitation.
- The content under each heading is relevant to the heading’s title and links to the right page.
- The content under each heading should only be the most important and popular headings – don’t try to duplicate all your intranet.
- The size of the each section of links under each heading should be limited and be used.
- Test it with a sample of people first before launching or making any major changes every time.
My view is the mega menu must help people to get quickly and easily to the most important and popular pages they need to use on the intranet.
I have experienced both static mega menus (same headings, position nd links) and moveable menus that change as they follow you around from one part of the intranet to another. The feedback has been almost universal from people using them. Static menus work and changeable menus cause confusion and are avoided by most people.
When people are more familiar with and use the intranet more frequently maybe you can test with people want to change to moveable headings and content depending on where they are in the intranet?
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