Pulling my hair out over navigation problem

All suggestions are welcome

[reddevil]

Please help me - I have been churning this question in my head for months and still can't find a satisfactory solution. I have tried to keep the question as brief as possible so please bear with me.

On my homepage I would like to show the following links:-

Details of the Holiday Apartment
Beaches in the Local Area
Activities in the nearby Town
Golf
Flights
Car Hire
The Local Area (eg. beaches, golf, activities, history, local map etc)
The Nearby Town (eg. activities, history, larger map etc)
The Country

I chose to include the 'Beaches' and 'Activities' links on the homepage because I feel that holidaymakers would want to find this information before deciding whether to book and shouldn't have to dig to find it.

Now, my problem is that 'Beaches in the Local Area' section really needs to be included with the other information in 'The Local Area' section.
Would it confuse my visitors if they clicked on the 'Beaches in Local Area' from the homepage and suddenly found themselves one level down in 'The Local Area' section?

Similarly, 'Activities in the nearby Town' should really be included in 'The Nearby Town' section (in fact this section is ).
Would the visitor be lost if they clicked on the 'Activities' link only to find themselves one level down in the 'The Nearby Town' section?

Your hints and tips are greatly appreciated.

[tedster]

My tests have shown that the ideal navigation presents 5 "equal" choices in a group. More than 7 falls into the "too many choices means no choice at all" category. So if you feel you "need" this many links, I would split them into groups in some way instead of asking forlks to choose between 9.

That said, also realize that few visitors will ever "learn" your website the way that you know it. If you want to provide more than one way to access some mission-critical information, that is almost never problematic for the end user, in my experience. It may however set the website author up for maintenance headaches over time.

You may find these two earlier threads helpful:

Information Architecture for the Small Site [webmasterworld.com]
Putting Information Architecture into Practice [webmasterworld.com]

[reddevil]

Wow, those two links were a great resource and definitely lots of food for thought - thanks very much, I learn a lot about that theory.

So, below I have made a practical comparison and would be interested in everybodys opinion of which they feel would be better?

So, imagine you wanted to rent a holiday apartment, which of the following menu options would entice you to stay and explore the site more:-

CHOICE A
Menu choices of:-
Details of the Holiday Apartment
Beaches in the Local Area
Activities in the nearby Town
Golf
Flights
Car Hire
The Local Area (eg. beaches, golf, activities, history, local map etc)
The Nearby Town (eg. activities, history, larger map etc)
The Country

CHOICE B
Menu choices of:-
Villa
The Local Area
The nearby Town
Flights and Car Hire
Other Places to Visit

OOOhhhhhhh, I wish there was only ONE answer to this question and then I wouldn't have such a hard decision to make. It makes it more difficult coz I have reasonable SERPS at the moment but could do with a more refined navigational structure.

[tedster]

The shorter one does it for me - it attracts me to explore further and in an easy way. The longer list makes me think a bit before I decide -- and that's not a good thing. Navigation should feel effortless.

You may have heard about the '3-click rule'. It turns out that, if you actually test that 'rule', it is NOT TRUE. As long as people feel they are getting closer to what they are looking for they will click many many times.

So if you have "local area" then anyone looking for "local beaches" or "local history" will probably have no resistance to clicking a couple times instead of once. I also think there is value in getting people started with a click - because it makes a second and third click easier somehow. They are already "in the habit".

If you want those other links to help circulate PR, or for anchor text influence and the like, my approach would be to group those choices elsewhere on the page under some kind of a "More Information" header, rather that listing them all in the main menu, And always remember how powerful a link within the page content itself can be, both for the search engines and for attracting a click from the interested visitor.

[reddevil]

Thanks again Tedster - a very compelling argument as always.

I would be interested to know what others think about which of the previous navigation option is more attractive for them?

I was thinking that, as I currently rank OK in SERPS for a number of phrases, would it affect my SERPS if I was to delete some of the links from my homepage as a result reducing the links to 5 (or 7)?

[SuperNovaCain]

I'm with tedster... the shorter list does appear more obvious for me.

tedster,
I've heard the "3 click" rule many places, and quite deliberately try to design with this in mind. It's insightful to hear you say it doesn't really matter tho. Is it a fair extrapolation that one should design towards the "3 click" rule but where pressed, opt for simpler but deeper navigation over strictly adhering to 3 clicks?

(not intending to hijack this thread or take it OT)
Likewise, I've heard other "3" rules like...
If you were to offer information, details, packages, etc... do it in 3's. Apparently people process 3 options much faster and with much more comprehension than other quantities, both higher and lower. Do have any experience with this?

Thanks
SuperNĪvaCain

[tedster]

No formal tests with any "rule of 3" but I can feel that my brain works that way. In copywriting, 3 bullet points is always what I aim for ... it just feels right.

Seven is a kind of limit in the brain, apparently - tested by the phone companies. I make 7 list items my upper limit for menus, with a target of 5. For a menu, 3 items is just too wimpy.

[SuperNovaCain]

Agreed.

I wasn't meaning 3 menu items.