Navigation projects can vary in scale and budget but they usually share the same phases. A small project might only include one or two techniques at each stage, whereas a large project might include them all.
Phases of a navigation project
1. Understand the context:
- Capture objectives
- Define performance measures
- Understand business strategy
- Understand constraints
(could be a single interview or a programme of stakeholder interviews and/or workshops)
2. Understand the content and current site/app:
- Content analysis
- Competitor analysis (mostly for inspiration)
- Expert review
- Web analytics and journey analysis
- SEO research (users search behaviour, site performance)
- Search log analysis
3. Understand the users:
- Customer feedback mining
- Review existing user research
- User test current site (and competitors)
- Exploratory user research – interviews, observation, open card-sorts, surveys
4. Design the new navigation:
- Best practice recommendation
- Align content and user needs
- Draft navigation design
- Prototype creation (mock-ups or HTML)
- User testing: face to face or remote (including 1st click testing, tree testing, closed card-sorts)
- A/B/n or MVT testing
- Iterations
5. Plan the implementation & maintenance:
- Content mappings
- Redirects plans
- Step-by-step implementation plans
- Style guides
- Governance structures
- Maintenance plans