The most frequently asked question I get since posting my responsive navigation patterns article is: How do I handle complex navigation for responsive designs?”
Great question, but before we get down to brass tacks, I urge you: use mobile as an excuse to revisit your navigation. Look at your analytics. What are your experience’s key sections? Where are people spending most of their time? Do you really need your privacy policy in your primary navigation? Focus. Use mobile’s lack of screen real estate to cut through political bullshit (“But I want to be in the nav too!”) and strip away dead weight. Your users will thank you.
Another thing: if you have a zillion sections and pages, prioritize search. A search form is an effective way of getting users to where they need to go without having to wade through fifeteen levels of navigation just to get there.
OK, now that all that’s out of the way, time for some real talk. Sometimes it’s not realistic to whittle your thousands of pages of content into three tidy little links that neatly fit on a mobile phone screen. Sometimes you’re just a giant retailer. Sometimes you’re a university with a ton of audiences and a ton of content. Sometimes the person who runs the cheesy “bulletin board” section of your site will literally eat your face if you were to remove their link from the navigation.
Sometimes you just have a complex navigation. What’s a girl to do? Here are some emerging patterns for dealing with complex, lengthy and/or multi-level navigations:
Great question, but before we get down to brass tacks, I urge you: use mobile as an excuse to revisit your navigation. Look at your analytics. What are your experience’s key sections? Where are people spending most of their time? Do you really need your privacy policy in your primary navigation? Focus. Use mobile’s lack of screen real estate to cut through political bullshit (“But I want to be in the nav too!”) and strip away dead weight. Your users will thank you.
Another thing: if you have a zillion sections and pages, prioritize search. A search form is an effective way of getting users to where they need to go without having to wade through fifeteen levels of navigation just to get there.
OK, now that all that’s out of the way, time for some real talk. Sometimes it’s not realistic to whittle your thousands of pages of content into three tidy little links that neatly fit on a mobile phone screen. Sometimes you’re just a giant retailer. Sometimes you’re a university with a ton of audiences and a ton of content. Sometimes the person who runs the cheesy “bulletin board” section of your site will literally eat your face if you were to remove their link from the navigation.
Sometimes you just have a complex navigation. What’s a girl to do? Here are some emerging patterns for dealing with complex, lengthy and/or multi-level navigations:
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