A Study of Website Navigation Methods

Thomas S. Tullis, Ellen Connor, Lori LeDoux, Ann Chadwick-Dias, Marty True, & Michael Catani
Fidelity Investments
82 Devonshire St, V4A, Boston, MA 02109 USA
Contact: Tom.Tullis@Fidelity.com

This is a case study of an effective approach to finding an optimal design solution. We used an online study to evaluate six different navigation methods for the same website and chose one based on the results.

Paper presented at the Usability Professionals Association (UPA) 2005 Conference in Montreal.

HTML version of paper

PDF of paper

PDF of slides

Links to video demos of the navigation methods studied:

• Yahoo-style menus
• Rollover menus
• Flash menus
• Expand/Collapse menus
• Drop-down menus
• Fly-out menus

Note: These videos were made with TechSmith's Camtasia and may require their free codec.