Commentary

Navigation Is Broken

by Paolo Gaudiano , Op-Ed Contributor, January 14, 2015

Last year I shared my opinion that web surfing is broken: finding relevant content online has become a challenge, both for those who produce content (publishers) and those who consume content (readers). This is a macroscopic problem, meaning that it affects all online publishers and all readers: there is simply too much content out there. More recently I have come to realize that a parallel problem exists at the microlevel: navigation of individual sites is also broken.

The navigation problem is most evident on larger sites, especially publisher sites that generate a lot of content on a regular basis. This problem manifests itself in the form of high bounce rates: visitors come to a site but leave quickly as they do not find additional content relevant to them.

There are many reasons for high bounce rates, but I believe that a universal problem is that site navigation is based on ideas and designs that are outdated and flawed. There are several ways in which sites offer navigation, including: content placement; lists of “most popular” or “most shared” content; site search functionality; and the ubiquitous navigation menu.

I have recently written in this column my viewpoint about the dangers of promoting popular content, and site search functionality is largely useless unless you are looking for a very specific piece of information. Here, I want to focus on the navigation menu.

Navigation menus have been around since the dawn of the Web. Other than the addition of some fancy animation and interactivity, menus have not changed. As an example, compare these screenshots of the home page of the New York Times from 1996 (from the WayBack Machine) and from 2015. While the menu locations and section labels have changed, the concept and the functionality remain virtually identical.

I believe that navigation menus are fundamentally flawed for several reasons. For one thing, menu-based navigation becomes virtually useless as a Web site grows in size. Trying to abstract a lot of content into a small set of keywords is challenging: Should an article describing a baseball player liquidating his stock portfolio to settle a divorce be listed as sports, money, or life? From the reader’s perspective, how useful are section labels? Browsing an entire section is great with a physical newspaper, but not online.

At a more fundamental level, menus reflect the linear, hierarchical thinking we inherited from the engineers who initially designed the Web. This type of rigid navigation may be a natural way to explore data, but it is not very natural for browsing content. We don’t want to explore the structure of a website, we want to be immersed in content.

There are many technologies that attempt to address navigation problems, such as site optimization algorithms that adjust content based on reader targeting, or CMS platforms with rich taxonomies and automatic content labeling. An interesting approach was originally developed by companies like Outbrain and Taboola, who offer a list of relevant content at the end of an article. Sadly, these platforms have been perverted to become click-bait machines for the main purpose of generating revenues.

What is the solution? I have recently suggested that Visual Exploration is a paradigm that can recreate the idea of Web surfing. I believe the same concepts can be applied to site navigation. Some companies are offering platforms that can work very well to drive readers deeper into a site to find relevant content.

Have you seen any innovative approaches to site navigation that you would like to share with other readers?

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5 comments about "Navigation Is Broken".

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Matt Heinsimer from CBS Interactive, January 15, 2015 at 12:10 p.m.
funny, I was actually thinking about this last night before going to bed. I totally agree that navigating content around the web is archaic and we should start thinking about how the brain actually works when tying together subject matter, ideas, historical takes, opinions, pictures, and much more. Just like your brain makes associations between various information stored in it, I think we could take notes from some of the Audio/Literary Maps out on the web that show various relationships/connections between artists, writers, producers, themes, genres, etc to help you discover and learn more about a particular artist or topic. It would be really cool to see a publication design their Home Page (or otherwise) to show articles in a visual map so a reader could explore tangents, additional articles, and other content related to the subject but in a way that makes easy connections just like the brain works. http://liveplasma.com/ is a good example of this mapping for
Reply

Paolo Gaudiano from Infomous, Inc., January 15, 2015 at 2:21 p.m.

Thank you Matt, LivePlasma is super cool! My own company (Infomous) focuses on visualizing text content in a somewhat similar way, but without the "conceptual" similarities of LivePlasma.

I completely agree that it would be great to see a publication using visual maps. In that case the whole notion of home page may not be so meaningful. One advantage for publishers would be to avoid the "sideways traffic" problem.

Jim Brouwer from Krell Lab, LLC, January 15, 2015 at 4:36 p.m.

Paolo – I find myself agreeing with much of what you say, though in a sense disagreeing with your conclusion.

While there are aspects of human thought/activity that can be parallel (e.g. walling and chewing gum), most thinking/processing goes on through a linear process. Much like we watch movies and read books from bringing to the end, much of how we approach the world is built on linear constructs.

One of the great differentiations you make in your ‘Visual Exploration’ blog is that between ‘search’ and ‘exploration.’ Even the 8-billion pound gorilla Google doesn't do a great job of differentiating search terms that overlap clearly different markets (e.g. ‘vintage’ as in vintage shoes, vintage wine, and vintage cars). Perhaps helpful if one is exploring, but not if one is searching. By the way, for your ballplayer example, I would list the story under all three label headings.

One of the huge unmentioned points that blurs the line between searching and exploring is that users may think they are doing one thing when they actually mean to do the other. Some of this problem is often fueled further by the users lack of understanding the proper lingo to use in a search. Perhaps most easily seen on tech sites where one is attempting to resolve a problem (hardware or software), frustration meters often burry themselves as a user struggles to use the ‘right’ words to describe a problem.

Whenever discussions of menu design crops up, I'm always reminded of Kai's Power Tools. Kai Krause developed some incredible Photoshop plug-ins, many years ahead of the competition. I think what killed them was the incredibly clever menu system they used. Something I learned long ago relating to computer interfaces is that what’s easy to use gets used. Great & easy trumps easy. Unfortunately, more often than not ‘easy’ trumps ‘great’ when great stands alone.

Apologies for the long-winded observations. Finding a great site navigation system is one of my constant searches. For my two-cents, Apple's is brilliant in its simplicity. It blends graphics and text nicely. It also provides a beautiful horizontal hierarchical menu > sub-menu system. I've studied novices using Apples site and they understand it. “Pros” don’t even really notice it. From a designer’s perspective, that is high praise.

Paula Lynn from Who Else Unlimited, January 15, 2015 at 8:39 p.m.

When media can cull your reading (aka knowledge) information to what is perceived that you want to know, it can also control the information you receive ergo believe as well. Who controls the media and who allows the media to control it becomes all the important every day.

Paolo Gaudiano from Infomous, Inc., January 17, 2015 at 8:06 a.m.

James, thank you for your thoughtful post. I agree that "easy" is critical to success. But I also think we are stuck because of inertia, and someday new, better ways to navigate will emerge that leverage our visual (as opposed to reading) skills.