Welcome to July’s edition of the UX Crucible from an unusually sunny London.

This month I want to talk about Mega Menus and Website Taxonomy as we have multiple clients asking us to help sort theirs out and so it seems to be a popular subject. I have personally been involved in projects of this nature since around 2002 and what connects them all is the political backdrop that is a feature of every engagement.

Like a website’s homepage, the primary navigation is the gateway to all site content for anyone browsing the site. Often it reflects the internal structure of an organisation and, because it is kept in the “difficult to fix” bucket, it has evolved over time to become a Frankensteinian monster.  Product and content owners vie against each other for prominence in the menu and when an agreement can’t be reached we find multiple items added. As a result site visitors can be faced with a mega menu that presents them with literally hundreds of choices, many of which are duplicated or irrelevant or both.

From a UX perspective the solution isn’t a complex one but the consulting element needs to be carefully handled. Managing internal stakeholders expectations and demands needs to be done sensitively both in terms of being empathetic to their needs but also to understanding the commercial risks to their business and them personally. We are fortunate to have a team of senior experts that are experienced at leading projects like this so if you are interested to learn more about negotiating this tricky area please do get in touch with me.

Thanks for reading
Paul