The main navigation is available on every page of the website and acts as the primary mean of navigation between the different sections of the website.
The navigation bar exists out of 4 parts:
- Logo: back to home button
- Main navigation items: links to the most important sections on the website.
- Site wide search
- Secondary navigation items: links to less important sections of the website but still relevant to nearly all visitors.
Number of items in navigation
Ideally the amount of main navigation items is limited to 7 in order to avoid information overload and confusion for the visitor.
Fold-out menu
To be able to display the extensive architecture of the website, it is made possible to show subpages for the main navigation items in a fold-out menu. This fold-out opens on click.
The fold-out menu is column based and can contain 3 to 4 columns. The first colum is always reserved for a short intro about the selected menu item and a call to action to the main page of the section. The other columns contain menu links to the pages within the section. For additional structure, the menu links can be structured by grouping them into different sections with a title on top.
What goes in the fold-out menu?
It is not the goal to input all the subpages of a specific section in the fold-out menu. Too many items will clutter the view and will negatively impact the readabillity of the menu. The fold-out menu should contain the most important pages within the section and the pages most relevant to the visitor.
Sticky behaviour
The main navigation bar dissapears when the visitor scrolls down to dedicate all available screen space to the content of the page. On scroll-up, the navigation bar becomes visible again and stays visible while scrolling up.
