A question as I wrestle with having shiny new website at work:

What’s the most popular way of finding what you want on a complex website?

– buttons. Lots of clicky buttons. On every page.

– buttons. Lots of buttons, but lead you on a journey through a few pages to find what you want.

– a search bar. Repeated on every page.

– ?

It’s teaching resources and information about us as educational charity.

Prioritise and use contextual navigation. Use search by all means, but it needs to be a good search mechanism that gives good results. Focus on user needs, not business demands.

For example, I work on NHS Trust websites and we are often asked to focus on ‘News’ on the homepage but we point out that our research shows again and again that users go to a Trust website to find things like car parking charges, directions, visiting hours etc and NOT to look at news. By all means link to a news story about the scanner appeal on a content page that has contextual relevance to the scanner, but don’t distract users on their journey, signpost them at their destination.

It might very well be worth getting someone in who knows about UX design, as this kind of thing is actually really quite difficult.

As it’s for a charity, you may be able to tap up a local corporate with a proper digital design function to give you some help pro-bono, as a part of their Corporate Social Responsibility aims (many big companies do this). We’ve done similar for local charities and community groups.

We have good developer on board, they share view I do.

I’m just being challenged by colleagues…

I’m just being challenged by colleagues…

<div id=”stw-36e151697caef32baf1e6533d9e77fa3″>
<div id=”stw-1744474370″ class=”stw-forum-replies-1″>This is often the problem, everyone has an opinion…</div>
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<div>And without casting aspersions, good developer /= good UX. It’s a bit like saying you don’t need a good architect because you have a good builder, or vice versa. They’re complimentary functions, but not the same thing.</div>

Oh the ironing…

Focus on user needs, not business demands.

For example, I work on NHS Trust websites and we are often asked to focus on ‘News’ on the homepage but we point out that our research shows again and again that users go to a Trust website to find things like car parking charges, directions, visiting hours etc and NOT to look at news. By all means link to a news story about the scanner appeal on a content page that has contextual relevance to the scanner, but don’t distract users on their journey, signpost them at their destination.

Very much this. It’s a difficult subject with many, many books written on it. It’s been one of the main topics in web development for years, because user experience is fundamental to a successful website.

Make it as easy as possible for them to find the information they are looking for, not what you want to show them. And prioritise that over everything else.

Depends on how many levels of child pages there are and whether the child pages need to be navigated from the top level or if they are directly related and meant to be read in chronological order from their sibling pages…

But a search bar in the header is always a good idea for a quick find.

Might be worth giving Hotjar a go for a month.

Hotjar – Google Analytics has an overlay the same. I’m really clear about what our visitors currently do on our current site.

That said, the current site is so sh*the, even our own team give up trying to find things! Therefore is not a hugely accurate indicator of our customers use of a site …!

I was a judge at the European Splash Awards recently, and one of the winning sites really struck me as having a great navigation experience. See http://boip.int and the way it lists a series of actions, along with jumping off points. Definitely got my vote…

Rachel

Might not be possible, but not having too complex a website in the first place would be my advice. Keep it simple, make the links obvious and don’t clutter the page with lots of different bits of text, photos, adverts etc. Less is more I find with many websites.

I’m really clear about what our visitors currently do on our current site.

But is that necessarily a good thing? They do what they do on the current site because that’s the tool they have. Give them different ways of finding things and they may well do different things on the site. You need to do research – find out what the users *WANT* from the site, what they find good – and bad – about the current site. It’s easy to set up a SurveyMonkey survey to get some answers. And find out what devices are being used most regularly and optimise around those.

And finally – Google Analytics should be used alongside other tools like CrazyEgg (heatmapping tool) – GA tells you *where* users go. CrazyEgg shows you where they click on the screen (ie, users clicking on non-function elements), it shows you where they scroll to etc.

Rachel – we did something very similar to that BOIP site for a client about three years ago – clear clickable signposted links using plain English sentences for a victim support website. BOIP is lovely though – a great reference point 🙂

Yeah, I’ve seen it many times based around the person (persona navigation, if you will) but this very much looks at needs. I like that a lot

Write down a site map first with all the pages you need.

Then it might be obvious that theres an ordering or grouping of stuff you could have a link to, say, ‘products’ and within that like your bikes, frames, wheels etc.

And then a group for ‘branches’ and list all the shops within that

etc. etc. then you can use breadcrumb trail layout for navigation to assist people.

Really depends what the links/pages are but its quite rare not to have some logical grouping or order.

Searches are tricky too, as you need to make sure you are handling what search criteria people are using – they often vary from what you internally know pages as. Search should really be the nuclear option unless you have a massive amount of products to find like Amazon.

Lots of links only do one thing – people stop caring after the first half dozen or so in a long list (so sneaky trick for burying your ‘how to complain’ link on sites, for example).

I’m really clear about what our visitors currently do on our current site.

Take that piece of information and chuck it in the do not remember pile. Especially as you mention that your site it terrible.

Otherwise you’ll end up just replicating it again!

^^^^ ohhhhhh so much that.

It should be easy to find what the person is looking for.* As I keep hearing at work, ‘we shouldn’t need a search on our website as it should be easy to find what the user is looking for’ – I’d say that is right for about 70% of stuff, but the search is still getting plenty usage!

Site Structure is very important, as many levels as is necessary without being convoluted, so structure works but has to be done in an obvious way for the user (which is hardly ever the same way the designer of the new site thinks!).

* That completely depends on what they are looking for though, but the essence is correct.

It is but to echo the Amazon comment above, sometimes search is useful – but just make the search filterable. Same as RightMove, AutoTrader, AirBnB, holiday sites etc – if the content is so complex, just make it easy to filter results.

It might very well be worth getting someone in who knows about UX design,

I think there was somebody on here a while ago – Ling I think?

Agreed…I keep getting told it isn’t needed, but looking at the MI, it very clearly is needed (which also highlights that the architecture of the site isn’t as good as it could be)…

Otherwise you’ll end up just replicating it again!

This is absolutely my worry…

Site map we are good on – lots of faffing to get there…

Anyway, we’re on telly in a moment, so go us! National Lottery project winners…

Search should really be the nuclear option unless you have a massive amount of products to find like Amazon

Ok, that’s interesting. We will use it for our 1000 pages of resources and bits to download.

But you are suggesting good site structure and buttons is preferable for all top and mid level pages.

If you have thousands of resources then global search may prove difficult as search terms will be so similar ie, [instrument diagram] would show all results with *diagram* in the title or text and not be very useful. So advanced filterable search may be required. Or better structuring of content in the first place.