The case for dynamic navigation
I have been bouncing an idea for a new kind of navigation structure for a while and wanted to share it with you guys! In all current navigation structures the order of navigation elements is set by a mix of internal business drivers (usually marketing), card sorting/usability testing and analytics. But what if the navigation adapted to your needs as a user over time?
A navigation that would dynamically reorganize itself based on a user’s usage, needs and interests.
Its been done before!
If you had ever used office back in the early 2000s you probably ran into Microsoft’s attempt to do just this. They called it “adaptive menus” and it hid items you didn’t use with an option to expand the full menu.
Microsoft’s Adaptive Menus in Office 2000
These menus were widely regarded as a terrible idea. From a techrepublic article on the subject
You can't blame Microsoft for trying, but nobody liked or wanted the "personalized" menus. These menus remembered what you used and displayed only the commands you used frequently. Unfortunately, they generated a lot of nuisance support calls because users couldn't find the menu commands they needed. These menus probably looked good on paper, but they were annoying in practice.
Some pitfalls & solutions
So there are obviously some issues with a dynamic or adaptive navigation. I do believe there is a way through the issues with this concept but that doesn’t mean there aren’t issues!
Here are a few problems I could think of off the top of my head, it’s by no means exhaustive!
Diverging and inconsistent user experiences
Because most user experiences are on super-personal devices like phones these days, a lot of the issues with having a user-specific interface are eliminated (on mobile anyway). Desktops could still benefit but need to have a bit more of a measured approach.
Difficult support and troubleshooting (see Microsoft example above)
The best solution to difficult support is to not need it. When is the last time somebody needed help using the Amazon menu system?
When dealing with more complicated systems it would be useful to segment a fixed amount of important navigation items to always be present while other more job-specific features are dynamic.
Marketing or business needs sublimated to user needs
This is a tricky one. Businesses tend to want to promote what they think is important/useful even if it conflicts with user needs and desires (eg: Try our new video streaming service, promotion, product category, etc).
There would have to be a way to weight promotional and business priorities higher where they would be sticky until the users interest in it waned enough for it to fall off the navigation again.
Actionable user navigation analytics difficult to aggregate
Because every user would have a slightly different navigation and structure it would effect how they are tracked throughout their app or website journey. Users would need to be segmented into needs classes rather than by their navigation structures or features.
User confusion as the navigation changes over time
This may be one of the hardest challenges to overcome. Users generally don’t like change. The trick would be having the changes be so subtle and seamless that the users never notice its changing.
Some assumptions where a dynamic navigation could work
User is always logged in
Device isn’t shared and is already deeply personalized.
User needs quick and easy access to a limited set of functions that they use every time they interact with the app
So where is this useful?
I think because the days of huge navigational structures are long gone (at least in most consumer-facing apps), in favor of simple top-level navigation structures and search this concept probably is best implemented as an addition to, not a replacement for the main navigation.
I think I have just invented quick links all over again! 😂