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"If I can't find it, it must not exist."

Chances are at least some of your intranet users have said this before. After all, most of us just give up and assume content doesn't exist if we can't find it on the first few tries. Would your Web sites pass the test? Or do you unknowingly turn users away?

Recent experiences both on the Internet and my company's intranet left me with the overwhelming feeling that, as a whole, we in the Web business haven't necessarily improved with regard to this basic requirement. While search engines have vastly improved, the basic "click and you shall find" method of navigation has gotten more complicated.

White Space as an Endangered Species

As information on Web sites has grown exponentially, so have the number of links and the amount of content on site landing pages. While I commend Web masters for taking heed of the usability studies and attempting to make most content one to two clicks away, there is a limit to what users can "see." More and more landing pages seem to have crammed the entire universe on one page. Every inch of the page is divided into different zones and is taken up with competing links and content. White space has become an endangered species.

While I agree with reducing the number of clicks it takes to get to content, there is a point at which the sheer number of links becomes overwhelming. What this means is that, even if the link is there, my eyes and brain have been so overwhelmed that I couldn't find it even if it were blinking in red and shouting at me.

Meaningful Navigation

With the need to move at "e-speed" and the demand on designers to "take it up a notch," sometimes meaningful navigation gets lost in the shuffle. I am still amazed at the number of sites that look exquisite, but use esoteric icons for navigation with no text, no mouseovers, and no hints for the common user. These sites are more like a game of "click and go seek" than a productive user experience.

If you're tempted to use a strictly iconic approach to your navigation, provide another easier means of navigating your site as well. Remember, you may have the coolest site on the block, but if people cannot find anything, your site won't be much more useful than using a lava lamp for bedtime reading.

Common Sense Link Text

Text links are simple, easy to use, and descriptive. Sounds perfect, doesn't it? The more I search my company's Web sites for critical information, the more I learn that logic doesn't always play a part in naming and categorizing text links.

For example, let us say that your company's name is Company A. You have just entered a very important site within its intranet, the Human Resources sites. This is the place you go to find all the information that is truly important to you as an employee: pay, benefits, vacation, and other time off information. How can Company A make this difficult for users, you might ask? After all, intuition would say the text links might look something as follows:

• Benefits
• Payroll
• Time Off
• Vacation

With this organization, a user can visit, run through the list of links alphabetically by topic, and be right to the content they need in a matter of seconds.

However, if Company A is similar to my organization, the people who develop the content go with the most politically correct and vague method. Therefore, the list of links looks more like this:

• Company A Benefits
• Compensation Management
• Work/Life Balance Policies

As you can see, the time required for a user to decipher this and find the desired content has increased. Not to mention, because it is not as intuitive as it could be, each return visit also takes longer than needed.

Bottom line: develop your content, categorization, and links in a way that allows someone who is not PC-savvy; in a time crunch; multitasking; and doesn't necessarily speak English as their native language to find information quickly.

Expandable Menus

It seems as if the evolution of multi-level dropdown and pop-out menus became the answer to every Web designers' prayers. They allow designers to put as much content as they had within one click of the main page, save space, and not mess up their design. Sounds almost too good to be true!

Expandable menus are a wonderful development and they do provide the benefits I listed above. These menus have some pitfalls, however, which are often overlooked, that need to be avoided.

Expansion is Not Infinite
Just because your developer has allowed for infinite expansion and levels within your menus does not mean you should use them. Keep the lists within your dropdowns to approximately half dozen selections and additional sub-menus should never exceed one or two.

Remember that too much dropping down, and popping-out of selections is not only overwhelming and confusing, but also a challenge for the mouse. That's right, the mouse. Even if you are an experienced PC user and have mastered the mouse by spending a decade or more playing solitaire and Tetris, the mouse gets persnickety when faced with multiple menus that work with the onmouseover event. You can drive users mad if the menus they are trying to read and access keep displaying and then disappearing.

Resolution and Visibility are Important
Much in the same way we had to learn about constructing HTML tables that scale based on screen resolution, so it goes with expandable menus. If your menus expand and collapse, make sure that the rest of your menu selections don't miraculously disappear. While some menu selections may move out of the visible screen area, they should not altogether disappear (as in, you should be able to scroll down and still find them).

Ask the Audience
This last item is the one most often ignored, at least in my group, when it comes to designing Web sites and navigation. The rush to meet aggressive deadlines coupled with an attitude that we as Web professionals know more than our users results in a lot of sites that are intuitive to the Web team, but confusing to the intended audience.

Invest an hour or two over the life of your site's development cycle and simply meet with a few users or even form a short focus group. The users don't bite and it'll do you good to get away from your desk and speak with others. The benefits to the site and you will be worth your while.