A Practical Guide to Structuring, Labelling, and Styling Your Site’s Navigation
Website navigation might seem like a small detail when you’re thinking about designing and building a new website for your business, but it plays a huge role in user experience and overall site performance. A well-designed navigation system helps users find what they’re looking for quickly and effortlessly, while a poorly structured one can lead to frustration and lost traffic.
Whether you’re planning a redesign or just looking to make improvements, these insights will help you build a navigation system that truly supports your users and your business goals.
1. Optimise Sub-Menus for Usability
Content rich websites such as e-commerce sites, often come with extensive navigation needs to make sure they are as user friendly as possible. Mega menus and drop down menus are widely used to help users quickly find what they’re looking for. However, simply having these features isn’t enough, they need to be carefully designed to avoid overwhelming or confusing visitors.
Ensure that sub menus are easily accessible without the need for extra clicks. Implementing hover-to-reveal functionality on desktop devices can significantly enhance the user experience by reducing friction and making navigation feel more fluid. However, it’s equally important to optimise the experience for touchscreens by using tap-friendly alternatives and clear visuals.
Example:
The popular online fashion retailer ASOS elevates the browsing experience with effective mega menus. Recognising the vast product range inherent in e-commerce, ASOS expertly categorises its offerings within the sub-menu, providing users with an immediate and comprehensive overview. Furthermore, they enhance usability and visual appeal by incorporating imagery that highlights key areas like seasonal trends, bestsellers, and new arrivals, strategically guiding the user’s eye.
Make sure you test your menus across various devices and screen sizes to ensure they remain functional and user-friendly on mobile and desktop alike. Thoughtful menu design not only aids usability, but also contributes to a more polished, professional website.
2. Prioritise Content Placement
Psychological studies, particularly those related to the serial position effect, show that users tend to pay more attention to items that appear at the beginning and end of a list—this is known as the primacy and recency effect. In the context of website navigation, this means that visitors are more likely to notice and remember menu items positioned at these two points.
To take full advantage of this, it’s important to be strategic about where you place your most valuable or high priority navigation items. Key sections of your website—such as “Services”, “Contact”, or your main product categories—should ideally be placed either at the very start or end of your navigation menu. These locations are most likely to capture attention, encourage clicks, and support users in completing their intended tasks.
Example:
Etsy masterfully leverages the serial position effect right from the top. Placing “Categories” directly beside their logo gives it prime visual real estate, recognising the common user behavior of category-based browsing. Their main menu further prioritises “Gifts” by positioning it first and adding a visual icon – a smart move given that gift-buying is a core driver for Etsy shoppers. The prominent placement of “Easter” immediately following caters to timely, seasonal needs, capitalising on current shopping intentions.
Ultimately, thoughtful content placement not only improves usability and click-through rates, but also reflects a more user-centred approach to navigation design.
3. Keep Menus Concise and Tidy
A cluttered navigation menu can be overwhelming, confusing, and off-putting for users. When visitors are presented with too many choices, it can lead to decision fatigue, making it harder for them to quickly find what they’re looking for, or even causing them to leave the site altogether. That’s why it’s essential to keep menus concise, organised, and visually tidy.
A good rule of thumb is to limit the number of top-level navigation items so they comfortably fit on a single horizontal line, especially for desktop displays. This not only enhances the overall readability, but also preserves the aesthetic appeal of your website. A neat, well-spaced menu contributes to a more professional and user-friendly interface, which can positively influence a user’s perception of your brand.
Where appropriate, group related items grouped under logical categories or sub-menus to keep the top-level navigation simple, while still allowing deeper access to important content. Remember to prioritise clarity over cleverness, your navigation should be intuitive for first-time visitors, not just insiders.
Example:
Shopify excels at menu clarity with its concise, single-word labels: “Solutions,” “Pricing,” “Resources,” and “Enterprise.” This minimalist approach fosters effortless scanning and navigation, giving each key area ample visual breathing room and strategically drawing attention to the prominent “Start free trial” button, encouraging conversions and guiding users toward their desired outcome. Strategically placed at the end, “What’s new” deviates from the single-word convention, but its terminal position cleverly groups and highlights recent additions and secondary updates without cluttering the primary navigation.
Ultimately, a tidy menu supports better user journeys, reduces friction, and contributes to a more modern, refined web experience.
4. Hamburger Menus on Desktop?
The hamburger menu has become a standard solution for conserving space on mobile devices. However, its effectiveness does not always translate well to desktop environments. On larger screens, relying solely on a hamburger menu can actually reduce usability and negatively impact user engagement.
Research and usability studies have shown that desktop users often overlook the hamburger icon altogether, particularly if they are less tech savvy or unfamiliar with the symbol’s purpose. Even when users do recognise it, the additional click required to reveal the menu creates a small but significant barrier to access. This extra step can slow down navigation, hinder discoverability of key pages, and lead to frustration, especially when users are accustomed to having immediate access to visible menu options on desktop.
To improve the user experience, it’s generally advisable to avoid using a hamburger only menu on desktop devices. Instead, opt for a traditional horizontal navigation bar where key links are visible at all times. This provides a more intuitive, accessible, and efficient way for users to explore your site. If screen space is limited due to design constraints, consider using a hybrid approach such as displaying the most important links in the main navigation, and if done correctly grouping secondary options inside a hamburger menu.
Example:
Given Amazon’s vast offerings, effective menu navigation is paramount. While their prominent search bar takes center stage, Amazon strategically employs a desktop hamburger menu (at the start of their horizontal menu) to organise their extensive services for user scanning. The sheer breadth of their categories would overwhelm horizontal space, resulting in a cluttered interface and negatively impacting both design and user experience. The hamburger menu, therefore, becomes a necessary compromise for managing complexity at scale.
By providing a user-friendly and transparent navigation experience on desktop devices, you not only improve usability but also support better engagement, retention, and overall satisfaction.
5. Prioritise Mobile Usability
With the majority of web traffic now originating from mobile devices, designing for mobile is essential. In fact, mobile first design has become a standard best practice, particularly when it comes to navigation. Users expect a seamless, intuitive experience on their phones and tablets, and your site’s menu plays a crucial role in meeting that expectation.
Start by ensuring that your navigation is fully responsive, adapting smoothly to various screen sizes and orientations. This means more than just shrinking the desktop version, it involves rethinking how the menu works in a mobile context. Menus should be easily accessible, typically through a clearly visible icon or toggle, and they should open smoothly with minimal delay.
The tap targets within your menu should be large enough to avoid accidental clicks, and links should be spaced appropriately to account for fingers, not just mouse pointers. With the popularity of mobile apps, taking a lead out of their navigation making your website act more like an app can also lead to a streamlined user experience.
Example:
Airbnb excels in creating a seamless cross-platform experience by mirroring the design and functionality of their mobile app on their mobile site. This consistency, achieved by utilising large tap targets and intuitive icons, fosters natural navigation. Notably, Airbnb strategically employs a dual-menu approach on mobile, placing key navigation at the bottom of the screen to align with natural thumb reach – a clever optimisation for mobile UX.
Ultimately, a well designed mobile menu not only supports better user experience but also improves engagement, reduces bounce rates, and can even contribute to stronger search engine performance – since mobile usability is a ranking factor in Google’s algorithm.
6. Make Your Menu Aesthetically Pleasing
Your website’s navigation menu isn’t just a functional tool, it’s a key visual component that significantly influences how users perceive your brand and interact with your site. A thoughtfully designed, aesthetically pleasing menu enhances user confidence, encourages exploration, and contributes to a more professional and cohesive overall experience. We know this can be down to preference, but we know what looks nice and performs well!
First and foremost, your menu should look like a menu. This might sound obvious, but in pursuit of creativity or minimalism, some designers obscure basic functionality. To avoid confusion, ensure your menu elements are clearly defined and recognisable. Use standard UI patterns, such as clearly marked buttons or links, right down to having arrows to indicate there are submenus to be revealed. Always maintain visual consistency throughout.
Examples of these menus can be seen throughout the examples shown above.
Remember, your menu sets the tone for the rest of the site. A well-designed navigation system not only improves functionality but also reinforces your visual identity, builds trust, and leaves a lasting first impression.
7. What not to include in your header menu
Your website navigation isn’t just down to what you include in the header – it’s also what’s included in the footer links. Being selective about what to include, and where, is vital for both usability and clarity. Users rely on your navigation to orient themselves and find key information quickly. Overloading menus with too many links can dilute their effectiveness, create visual clutter, and make it harder for visitors to focus on what matters most.
A key element to what we mentioned in point 3 is keeping your menu concise, this starts by prioritising essential and primary landing pages that directly support user goals and business objectives. This includes core areas of your site such as “Home”, “About”, “Services”, “Products”, “Contact”.
Secondary or legally required links—such as “Privacy Policy”, “Terms & Conditions”, “Cookie Preferences”, or lesser-used resources like “Careers” or “Site Map”—should typically be placed in the footer navigation. Users have come to expect these items at the bottom of the page, and placing them there helps keep the main navigation streamlined without sacrificing accessibility.
Footers also provide a great opportunity to add supplementary navigation options, such as newsletter sign-ups, social media links, or quick links to customer support. Just like your header, though, the footer should remain well-organised and uncluttered, with headings or columns that separate content into logical groups.
Example:
Returning to Airbnb, their footer serves as a well-organised repository for essential but less frequently accessed information, catering to both user needs and legal requirements. This strategic use of the footer, in contrast to their streamlined header menu, effectively demonstrates how content-rich websites can clearly separate user-focused navigation from secondary, yet crucial, details regarding the company and legal compliance.
Ultimately, less is more when it comes to navigation. Thoughtfully limiting your menu items helps highlight the most important content, supports faster decision-making, and makes your site feel more modern and easy to use.
Final thoughts
By following these best practices, you’ll create a user-friendly website navigation system that keeps visitors engaged and encourages them to explore your content. Remember, good navigation is about simplicity, clarity, and consistency.
Ascendancy have all of these skills in house to ensure that your website navigation is designed and built to help your users seamlessly navigate the site and allow them to easily make valuable actions on the site, such as buying a product or enquiring about your services.
Is your site already designed and built? We have the expertise to make sure it performs well in search engines, as well as offering paid advertising services.
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