Information architecture · Intermediate · 1 h
Redesign a confusing navigation menu
A council recycling website with 11 menu items named after departments. Restructure it around what residents need to do.
Context
A fictional town council's waste service website has a top menu with these items: About Us, Services, Resources, Operations, Environmental Programmes, Commercial, Documents, News, Get Involved, FAQs, Contact. Residents mostly visit to check collection days, report a missed bin, find out what goes in which bin, and order a new bin.
Your prompt
Design a new navigation structure based on resident tasks, and show it on desktop and mobile.
Instructions
- List the top tasks residents come for (use the four in the context, and add up to four you think likely, marked as assumptions).
- Sort every existing menu item into: keep as is, rename, merge, move to the footer, or remove.
- Write new labels using words residents would use. Avoid internal jargon.
- Propose a primary navigation of no more than six items.
- Sketch the desktop header and the mobile menu.
- Write two tree-test tasks you would use to check the new structure, for example "Your bin was not collected yesterday. Where would you go to report it?"
Expected deliverables
- A before and after sitemap
- Desktop and mobile navigation sketches
- Two tree-test tasks
Completion checklist
5 items
Evaluation criteria
- The top resident tasks are reachable in one or two clicks.
- Labels are distinct; no two could plausibly hold the same thing.
- Mobile navigation is designed, not just collapsed.
- Assumptions are labelled as assumptions.
Hints and an illustrative solution
Show hints
- A prominent "Check your bin day" search by postcode might replace a whole menu section.
- FAQs often hide content that belongs in the relevant task page.
- Tree-test tasks should not contain the words of the label you hope people choose.
Show one possible solution
This is one reasonable answer, not the only one. Compare reasoning, not pixels.
One structure: Bin days, What goes in which bin, Report a problem, Order or replace a bin, Business waste, and Contact. "About Us", "Operations", "Environmental Programmes" and "Documents" move to the footer under "About the service". FAQs are folded into the task pages they answer. The home page leads with a postcode search for bin days.
A tree-test task: "Your neighbour says the blue bin is not collected on bank holidays. How would you check when yours will be collected next?" The expected path is Bin days, then the postcode result.