When you visit a website, you want to be able to quickly and easily find the information that you came for. Unfortunately, this doesn’t always happen. All too frequently, users visit a website, click around, don’t find what they need. So they leave frustrated. To avoid this frustration with your site, follow these four easy steps to organize your website and improve the user experience.
1. Stick to one main navigation.
More options is not always better. Actually, the more options you give a user initially, the more overwhelmed and confused they may feel. Unsure where to click, they will often just leave your site. Instead, put the user at ease and offer them a clear selection of information through one main navigation. By forcing users through the main navigation, you are basically taking their hand and leading them down the path of your choosing. The user finds what they need, and you have potentially picked up another satisfied customer.
2. List the pages on your site, then group them into logical categories.
Now that you have established that working within one basic navigation is the way to go, how in the world do you organize all of your content nicely within it? Let’s take this step-by-step. First, list out all of the pages you would like to include within your site. Then, begin to group the pages logically. As an example, a user would probably expect to see a company’s mission, history and executive bios grouped together. When categorizing your pages, also try to keep the number of groups to a minimum. If you have one navigation with 18 sections, it really doesn’t help the user. Again, less is more. As a rule, we recommended limiting the amount of main navigation categories to about six or seven points at the very most.
3. Use simple, brief section headers for your main navigation points.
Now that you have grouped your content, it is time to label these categories. Keep it short and sweet when identifying sections of content. Ideally, you want users to be able to glance at your navigation and quickly discern what type of information they could find in each section. While words that fit this bill may not be full of personality, this is one case where more general terms really are best. Leave the personal touches to the copy on the page and use the navigation headers to get the user to the page. If you get too cutesy or develop very specific section headers, you run the risk of confusing users. They may not understanding what a category contains, or you have limited yourself to what type of information could be added to the section in the future. If you are too specific with your main navigation categories, future additions may not have a logical home on the site, leaving admins to just add another point to the main navigation. And, this is typically not in the user’s best interest.
4. Work from left to right in terms of most important to least important.
Now you have categorized and named your sections of content, but in what order do you put them on the site? First, look to see if there is a logical progression of information that a user would consume, and then work from left to right. If there isn’t a logical flow of information, try to place the most important section first and then work your way right, ending with contact information. Users are accustomed to seeing contact information on the right-side of the navigation. They tend to look there first, and then probably to the footer next to see how they can get in touch with you. Make it easy for them to contact you, and hopefully you will reap the rewards of a well-organized website.
