Start with real tasks
Choose concrete intentions: find a price, compare services, contact someone or return to information seen earlier. Ask people unfamiliar with the site where they would begin. Record first choices and backtracking without guiding them.
Compare menu words with the words visitors use. A label such as “Solutions” may make sense internally yet mean little to outsiders. The service-page guide
- Tasks and audiences defined.
- First choices observed without help.
- Labels revised after hesitation.
Check several routes
An important page should have a predictable path even when someone arrives directly from search. Test the main menu, contextual links, breadcrumbs and footer. The same service should not acquire different names without a reason.
Deep menus need particular attention: visitors must understand the relation between parent and child items. Do not hide an essential destination behind hover alone, which does not translate to touch screens.
- Key pages easy to reach.
- Contextual links consistent.
- No essential hover-only destination.
Test keyboard and small screens
Use Tab, Enter, Space and Escape as appropriate for each component. Focus must be visible and an open submenu must be escapable. On a phone, test opening, closing, target size and enlarged text.
Try long and short pages. A sticky menu can obscure a heading after an anchor link; a drawer can leave scrolling locked after it closes. The W3C menu tutorial
- Focus and closing checked.
- Touch targets usable.
- Anchors and scrolling verified.
Find and fix dead ends
Group findings by effect: missing page, ambiguous label, loop, broken link or unreachable control. Fix journeys tied to actual visitor needs first, then repeat the task with someone who has not seen the change.
After release, review site search, exit pages and repeated questions without overinterpreting one metric. A phone enquiry may reveal a confusing menu. The measurement guide
- Dead ends ranked by impact.
- Fix retested.
- Visitor signals reviewed after release.