Navigation and Menus

Your menus correspond to your site hierarchy: top-level menu links for main categories, followed by children within each category. It may help to think of your menu as a family tree: The top-level items are the parents, the second tier items are their children and the third tier items are grandchildren.

Some General Rules About Menus

  • Submenus should include three to 10 items. If you have fewer than three, you might consolidate and include them on the top-level landing page instead.
  • If a page has fewer than 10 lines of text, consider merging it with another page. This will keep users from having to click multiple links to find the content they seek.
  • If a page scrolls down more than three or four screens, consider breaking it into multiple pages. This saves users from scrolling through huge pages to find content.