The effects of content organization and menu layout on search behavior

This study set out to examine what would be the optimal navigation style and content structure for a website. Previous research has examined either navigation style (Bernard & Hamblin, 2003) or content structure (Larson & Czerwinski, 1998) but not what the best combination of both would be. Two types of navigation styles were compared (left side indexed or top rollover) and two types of content structures (broad or condensed). There were 64 participants who took part in this study, all from a psychology subject pool. They were assigned to one of the four conditions (left side indexed/broad, left side indexed/condensed, top rollover/broad, top rollover/condensed). All participants viewed the same website content, however their website condition varied by navigation type and content structure. They were asked to go through the website and were given 7 task questions to complete, in which they would have to look for the answers on the website. All conditions received the same task questions. It was predicted that those in the left side indexed navigation condition would produce the quickest time to complete tasks with higher accuracy than those in the top rollover navigation condition. The results indicated that those in the left indexed navigation condition did produce the quickest time to complete tasks, although a significant effect was not found in every task. It was also predicted that participants in the broad content structure condition would produce the quickest time to complete tasks and with higher accuracy than those in the condensed content structure condition. The results indicated that those in the broad content structure condition did have the quickest time to complete tasks, although again a significant effect was found in only some of the tasks. In terms of accuracy, no significant difference was found in any of the conditions. The general findings of this study indicate there is a benefit in having a left indexed navigation and a broad content structure, as users would be able to locate information faster