Quick Tips for Managing Navigation on Your Website

Have you ever visited a website only to be completely overloaded with navigational options? Maybe there have been 20 to 25 links in the main navigation. When you visited this website what did you do? Did you try and find the appropriate navigational link or did you resort to searching the site for what you needed?

On any website, we want to avoid what designers call “information overload”. This concept describes the feeling a patron gets when there is too much information and too little hierarchy to make sense of it. Good navigational hierarchy will help your patrons complete their task, not hinder them on the road there.

So what is the threshold between too many and too few navigational links? While there’s no secret number, there are guidelines that we, as information architects try to abide by. Generally, it is thought that humans can hold up to 7 pieces of discreet information in their short-term memory. Psychologists call this number a human’s “cognitive load”. Perhaps this explains why it’s so easy for me to remember a 7-digit phone number but hard to remember the millions of digits that encompass pi, 3.14…

This is cognitive load at work. Translating cognitive load to website navigation, it makes sense that we’d try to limit the navigational options presented at any one time to that sweet spot of 7. Generally, showing 7-10 navigational options at one time is a good standard to live by.

While this may seem limiting, it does not mean a webpage can only include between 7-10 total links. It does mean, however, that you should consider this number when you determine how to group and organize navigational options on your website. To illustrate this concept, let’s take a look at Seattle Opera’s website.

In the main navigation, there are 8 options presented: “Season & Tickets”, “Calendar”, “Support Us”, “Gift Shop”, “Discover Opera”, “Our Affiliates”, “News”, and “About Us”. We assume that a user will scan over these options and find the one that best fits their needs. So if I’m looking to buy a ticket to the opera, Tosca, for example, I’ll scan the 8 options and most likely hone in on the “Season & Tickets” link. Once I do that, then I can move on to another task and hence another level of navigational options. Scrolling over the “Season & Tickets” link brings up a dropdown that once again has 10 options in it. I’m able to scan through those options and decide I am interested in purchasing “Single Tickets” to this performance.

Keep the concept of cognitive load in mind as you create website navigation based upon your changing organizational needs. This concept can be a great ally in maintaining the integrity of your navigation.

Cognitive load can remind you to limit yourself when you see your navigational options swiftly increasing. If you find yourself in this situation, perhaps consider narrowing the category heading. For example, if your “About Us” section has 20 navigational links in it, to which 7 are news related, perhaps “News” needs its own section in the navigation. Cognitive load will help you maintain your website’s navigation and help your patrons more easily accomplish tasks.