Navigation

✅ Do this Follow Jakob’s Law by making your navigation look and function like other websites users are familiar with. Don’t reinvent the wheel.   Why Users spend most of their time on other sites.* Therefore, users prefer your website to work the same as others. Jakob Nielsen, Ph.D. and principal of the Nielsen Norman Group, coined the term Jakob’s…

✅ Do this Follow Hick’s Law and help users make faster decisions by providing less uncategorized options in navigation. As options increase, categorizing options using Miller’s Law.   Why Fewer options lead to faster decisions. As options increase, categorizing decreases decision time. Hick’s Law explains how the number of possible choices impacts the time it takes for a person to…

Miller’s Law The number of objects an average human can hold in working memory is 7 ± 2.   ✅ Do this Follow Miller’s Law when showing lists, such as when you’re listing features on page or building groups in your navigation (e.g., “Checking, Savings, Certificates, Money Market” under “Accounts”). Each list should contain about 7 items or fewer.  …

✅ Do this Organize your navigation by topic (e.g., checking, saving, loans, etc) rather than by content format (e.g., videos, podcasts, articles, etc).   Why Initially, “users interested in a specific topic usually don’t care in what format the information will be delivered to them” (Avoid Format-Based Primary Navigation).   Test See Cases from Epicurious, The Home Depot and Google…

✅ Do this Order items in a navigation list by importance based on Serial Position Effect: (1) 1st place by importance (3) 3rd place by importance (5) 5th place by importance (7) 7th place by importance (9) 9th place by importance (8) 8th place by importance (6) 6th place by importance (4) 4th place by importance (2) 2nd place by…

✅ Do this Use generic names for products and services rather than fancy, made-up ones. For example, call a free checking account “Free Checking” as opposed to a made-up or ambiguous name such as “Silver Checking”, “Prime Checking” or “Community Checking”.   Why For instance, no one shows up on a credit union website looking for a “Gold Checking” account,…

✅ Do this Place “Mobile Banking” under “Online & Mobile”.   Why Users can find the mobile banking app under “Online & Mobile” with an extremely high level of ease and 100% success.   Test BloomCU conducted a usability study with 30 consumers to find the best Screen Usability Score (SCUS), which measures how easy it is for a user to…

✅ Do this Place your about page in the footer.   ⬇️ Consider this If you want to create more awareness of your “About” related content: Place “About” under “More” in the main navigation.   If you serve a niche market (as primarily SEG or TIP based): Expose “About” in the main navigation.   Why Users are trained to look…