If I were to ask most of you about the paramount characteristic of a professional and useful website, I’m sure the vast majority of answers would relate to the presence of quality of the content. And who could argue with that, because after all you did click on the site to view further details about a certain topic, right?

organising website content

But, let me put it another way. Let’s assume a friend let you know that you can find invaluable information for your thesis or paper on his newly developed blog. You open the blog only to be confronted with a mess of unstructured content and chaotically positioned submenus. True, all the information is there, but making sense of it involves more time and work than if you were to visit twenty blogs and paste the pieces of the puzzle together. `

Now, you may argue that this is a gross exaggeration. But you’d be surprised at how many blogs and sites with poorly structured content I come across every day doing web design in Gold Coast. And most users who can’t find what they want through an interface within a couple of clicks will simply take their query elsewhere. While there is no one-size-fits-all navigation structure, I’m going to share some of the methods that can help you organize your blog or website in accordance to its content.

Primary, Secondary And Additional Navigational Menus

Before I begin explaining the difference, let me just tell you how important it is to plan the increase in your website’s complexity. A limited quantity of content can be browsed exclusively from a single menu, but as the information expands that will no longer be the case.

That being the case, it’s necessary to create the website with at least of two categories of navigational menus from the start.

structuring navigational menus

The primary navigational menu should comprise of the content that is most relevant for your audience. This of course means that you should already have a clear picture of who your audience is and their interest.

Within the secondary navigational menu, you can include the content that does not serve the original scope of the website, such as contact, terms, frequently asked question section, etc. Of course, the nature of the website or blog determines which content should go where and these are just basic examples. It is also necessary to point out that in order to efficiently organize the content, you need to categorize it correctly. Here are two simple methods for this job.

Open Card Sorting Versus Closed Card Sorting

The principal questions to ask yourself prior to the design phase concerns the optimal labels that will point to each individual section of the content, and their grouping and positioning in the menu . Card sorting – a technique frequently utilized in information architecture – offers an excellent way to find answers to those questions. Now, whether you want to use the open or closed version of card sorting mainly depends on the nature of the project. Here is what they entail:

  • Open: the members of the focus group are presented with cards comprising of the content of the website and their task is to develop categories for it. Participants can be required to come up with two, three or infinite categories that will constitute the structure of the content, but they are not provided with any details regarding the project beforehand.
  • Closed: similar to the open card sorting, the closed version of the technique differs by the fact that the members of the focus group are provided with the categories of content and their task resides exclusively in matching the content with them accordingly.

Both the open and closed card sorting have their own circumstantial drawbacks and benefits and they can even be performed utilizing online or offline software. For example, when you have a limited understanding of your audience’s preferences and approach to viewing your content, then the open card sorting is a better option. On the other hand, exiting sites that have a preexisting structure would benefit more from the closed version of the technique.

Final Thoughts

I’m not going to lie to you; card sorting in either of its forms is not always an optimal procedure in structuring information. The best example for this comprises of websites with a high amount of content that fits in a singular category. In this case sorting the content based on popularity, date, geography or even the level of access for certain user categories is definitely more applicable.

 

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