Menu Best Practices

Intermediate Training Module 4: Site Organization

A navigation menu is more than a list of links. It is one of the primary ways visitors understand your website and find information.

Well-organized navigation helps users quickly locate the content they need, while poor navigation can make even well-written content difficult to find.

In this lesson, you’ll learn the principles behind effective navigation design and how to evaluate your own menu structure.

Top Navigation in cutheme

cutheme uses a top-level navigation structure that appears across the Carleton ecosystem.

If you’ve previously used CCMS, this may be a significant change from side navigation menus.

Benefits of Top Navigation

A top navigation structure provides:

A consistent user experience across Carleton websites
More screen space for content
Improved mobile usability
Better accessibility support
A modern and familiar navigation experience
Simpler site maintenance

Most visitors are already familiar with top navigation patterns, making websites easier to use.

Principle 1: Keep It Simple

One of the most common navigation mistakes is including too many menu items.

Visitors should be able to quickly scan your menu and understand the major sections of your website.

As a general guideline:

Aim for 5 to 7 top-level menu items
Avoid adding every page to the main navigation
Focus on the content visitors need most

Remember: Just because a page exists doesn’t mean it belongs in the main menu.

Principle 2: Plan Before You Build

Before editing your navigation, review the content already on your site.

Ask yourself:

Which pages are most important?
Are there pages that could be merged?
Are there pages that are no longer needed?
Do similar pages belong together?

Many navigation problems are actually content organization problems.

Creating a simple outline before building your menu can save considerable time later.

About
Programs
    Undergraduate
    Graduate
Research
News & Events
Contact

Principle 3: Organize Content into Logical Groups

Visitors look for information in groups.

Related content should be grouped together under clear section headings.

Future Students
    Undergraduate Programs
    Graduate Programs
    Admission Requirements

This structure is easier to understand than placing each item at the top level.

Good navigation helps people predict where information will be located.

Principle 4: Use Clear Menu Labels

Navigation labels should be:

Short
Clear
Familiar
Descriptive

Visitors should understand a menu item without needing additional context.

Good Examples

About Us
Programs
Research
News & Events
Contact

Less Effective Examples

Resources
Information
Learn More
Miscellaneous

Avoid internal terminology that may not be meaningful to visitors.

Principle 5: Prioritize Important Content

Not every menu item receives equal attention.

Users naturally pay more attention to items at the beginning and end of a navigation menu.

Because of this:

Place important sections near the beginning of the menu
Consider placing frequently accessed content near the end
Avoid burying critical information several levels deep

Common high-priority content on Carleton sites often includes:

About
Programs
Future Students
Current Students
Research
News & Events
Contact

Your site’s priorities may differ depending on its purpose and audience.

Principle 6: Limit Navigation Depth

Deep navigation structures can become difficult to use.

Whenever possible:

Keep related content within one or two submenu levels
Avoid creating long chains of nested pages
Simplify where possible

The deeper the navigation, the harder it becomes to browse.

Navigation Review Checklist

Before publishing changes, ask yourself:

✅ Are there 5-7 top-level items?
✅ Are menu labels clear and concise?
✅ Is similar content grouped together?
✅ Are important sections easy to find?
✅ Could any items be combined or simplified?
✅ Would a first-time visitor understand the menu?

If the answer to most of these questions is yes, your navigation is likely in good shape.

Transcript – Menu Best Practices

Hello and welcome to module 3 of our advanced cutheme training series. This video is all about creating a great navigation for your visitors.

There are a number of things that you can do to make your navigation menu intuitive and useful.

First of all, keep it simple. We recommend five to seven items at the top level of your menu. If you have a look at the menu for this site, we have about seven currently. And it’s good practice to review your menu periodically as it has a tendency to grow. Remove unnecessary items as a large menu can be overwhelming for your visitors.

Next, take inventory of your pages and the organizational structure. Look at the number of pages, and the parent/child relationships. And then make a plan. Put the most important items at the top level.

If you go to the back end of your site (Pages > All Pages), you can see the number of pages on your website. Here we have 98 Pages published.

Use the parent page drop-down over here at the right under the page tab. This helps you organize your site and find pages more easily in the back end. It creates a logical URL for search engines as well as for your users.

The way that it works is if you look under Page Attributes, you’re going to choose the parent for this particular page. This is module three and underneath that, we have best practices. So here I’ve chosen module 3 as the parent page.

Next, chunk information logically. You’ll want to group like items and logically organize your menu. How would it make the most sense to your visitors?

Use submenu items to further chunk information and break it down in a logical way. At the top level, I have Getting Started then we have the first module, Editing Essentials, and underneath that these three submenu items or sorry these five submenu items.

Make labels descriptive and clear but not too long. By default, the menu item name is the name of your page. But you can change that over here if you go to your menu under Appearance > Menus, click on this arrow. And under Navigation Label, you can change that. If I have something a bit longer, for example About this Training, I can change the navigation level label to read About.

And finally, order and prioritize. Put your most important items as the first or the last items in your menu. According to the primacy effect, people tend to remember or go to the first items. And the recency effect suggests that the most recent items read, usually the last in the list, also stick out in the reader’s memory. So it’s likely that the first and the last items on your menu get the most attention.

Try it Out!

Review your current website navigation.

Count the number of top-level menu items.
Identify any labels that could be shortened or clarified.
Look for pages that could be grouped together.
Consider whether your most important content is easy to find.
Update the menu if improvements can be made.