The top-down navigation structure of AntarcticGlaciers was becoming difficult to use due to the amount of content added to the site, necessitating numerous levels of nested drop-down menus. A top-down navigation scheme works well for up to say, 30 webpages, but once a website grows larger than that, it ceases to be user-friendly.
Senktec.com (the website development company that built AntarcticGlaciers) therefore reorganised the website’s architecture. Instead of relying on the standard WordPress drop-down menus, the pages are now organised hierarchically. Only top-level pages are retained in the header menu (for example, Modern Glaciers). Instead, we created index pages comprising an attractive image panel for each top-level section of the site, which hopefully encourage browsing. We also installed “Bread crumbs” at the top left corner of the page, helping users identify where they are within the website. Finally, we have a new sidebar that displays the full hiercharchy for the current webpage.
Please thoroughly test this new website structure for us, and leave comments in the box below! We want to know how this new architecture affected the usability of the website, how easy or difficult it is to navigate around the website, and any other comments you may have.