Mastering navigation sidebars in product design.
Essential tips and best practices.
After performing a successful redesign of our Detected Co-pilot sidebar, I thought I’d share some tips on how the optimal sidebar navigation design can be achieved.
In the world of product design, navigation sidebars play a crucial role in guiding users through interfaces efficiently and intuitively. Whether designing for a web application, mobile app, or dashboard, a well-crafted sidebar enhances the user experience by providing easy access to key features and content. Here are some essential tips that I consider to be best practice when creating a navigation sidebar:
1. Understand User Needs and Context
Before diving into design, especially high-fidelity Figma designs, thoroughly understand the users’ goals, tasks, and context of use. Conduct user research, gather insights through interviews or surveys, and consider the range of user personas interacting with your product. This foundation ensures the sidebar aligns with users’ expectations and supports their navigation journey effectively.
When designing the Detected sidebar, we spoke directly with users to understand their current behaviours and obtain their thoughts on how their interaction could be enhanced. Once we understood their workflow, it allowed us to create a content map and relate similar pages in order to accelerate their interaction with company profiles.
2. Prioritise Content and Hierarchy
Establish a clear hierarchy of navigation items based on user priorities and frequency of use. Place essential and commonly accessed features at the top, followed by secondary options in descending order of importance. Use visual cues such as size, color, or typography to differentiate levels of hierarchy.
Once we understood the most-used pages of our sidebar, we agreed to improve discoverability by grouping common pages together. Muted colour text was purposefully used to reduce the appearance of the group header; darker colours were used for iconography, and the darkest shade was used for labels in order to prioritise the pages themselves.
3. Keep it Concise and Consistent
Avoid overwhelming users with an excessive number of navigation items. Focus on presenting only the most relevant options to streamline decision-making. Use the same design patterns to create a consistent visual, as this will reduce the users interaction learning curve.
Consistent design is a key principal at Detected and we employed this throughout our sidebar redesign. We created one design pattern for the group header, icon and group items and repeated this for all groups. We also created a consistent UX pattern for items that contained a second layer of interaction.
4. Utilise Icons and Labels Effectively
Icons can enhance recognition and assist quick navigation. Pair icons with clear and concise labels to ensure clarity, especially for new users or those unfamiliar with the interface. Use universally recognised icons or conduct usability testing to validate icon meanings.
Our product contains domain-specific language and terminology, meaning we had to balance our icon choices with those that look familiar yet also depict domain features. We’re constantly assessing these icon choices and always seeking clarity from our customers and internal advocates to understand if improvements or changes are required.
5. Design for Scalability and Flexibility
Anticipate future growth and scalability of the product. Design the sidebar to accommodate additional features or content without compromising usability. Consider collapsible or expandable sections for complex applications to maintain a clean and organized layout.
As a product designer, one of my personal aims is to create interfaces that are scalable without the need for wholesale changes. Users are creatures of habit and often use pattern recognition for interaction. They scan content as opposed to reading, and therefore, a small UI tweak may often cause user friction and frustration as it can break their understanding of the layout of the interface. With the Detected sidebar, I implemented item groups that can be opened and closed, as this allows for future growth without affecting the length of the sidebar, while also opting for a scrolling sidebar to allow easy interaction on smaller devices.
6. Maintain Visual Consistency
Adhere to established design patterns and guidelines across the entire interface, including the sidebar. Consistent styling, spacing, and alignment create a cohesive visual experience that enhances usability and reduces cognitive effort. A grid system used within the main product can also be adopted within the sidebar to maintain alignment, cohesion and balance.
As mentioned earlier, a key requirement of the Detected sidebar was visual consistency. I wanted to ensure that we enhanced the discoverability of items while also increasing memorability to enable our users to quickly locate the pages of interest and remember their placement within the sidebar. I achieved this by creating a consistent visual and user experience for all sidebar groups and this pattern is reused for each new group or group item.
7. Provide Feedback and Affordances
Ensure users receive clear feedback when interacting with sidebar items. Highlight active or selected states visually to indicate the user’s current location or action. Use hover effects, animations, or subtle transitions to provide feedback on interaction states without overwhelming the user.
The Detected sidebar uses the same luminosity colour levels with deeper shades of black for the hover and selected colours. The hover colour is the same for both the group headers and individual navigation items. We also show a scrollbar when scrolling is active and provide the user with recognised chevron icons to indicate that groups can be opened and closed.
8. Test and Iterate
Conduct usability testing with prototypes or beta releases to gather feedback from real users. Observe how users navigate through the sidebar, identify pain points, and iterate based on insights gathered. Continuously refine the design to optimise usability and user satisfaction.
Usability testing can be conducted internally as well as with external users or clients. At Detected, I used one of our weekly team demos to showcase our new navigation sidebar and requested feedback from the team. One common piece of feedback was that the company name at the top of the sidebar (Monzo in these designs) did not have strong enough affordance to indicate this was an interactive area. Therefore, I added more colour shade behind the company name and added the chevron icon to indicate to the user that this name is interactive. I consulted the team again, and once we all felt that the company name visually reflected the ability to be interacted with, the updated version was deployed.
9. Consider Accessibility
Design the sidebar with accessibility principles in mind to ensure all users, including those with disabilities, can navigate the interface effectively. Use sufficient color contrast for text and icons, provide keyboard navigation options, and offer alternative text for icons or visual elements.
All text and background colours of the Detected sidebar meet level AA of WCAG and the hover colour is also used on focus states for those using keyboard as their primary navigation. As we continue to iterate our sidebar, further accessibility improvements will be made, such as the use of aria labels and greater focus for those using voiceover software.
10. Embrace Minimalism and Clarity
Focusing on clarity and simplicity in product design is essential, especially for sidebar navigation design. Avoid clutter by limiting decorative elements or unnecessary visuals that can distract from navigation goals. It’s important to ask yourself the value that new UI elements provide the end user, as often those that provide little to no value will detract from existing elements on the page. Embrace the use of whitespace in order to create breathing room, improve visual hierarchy, and draw the eye to important elements.
When redesigning the Detected sidebar, my goal was to create an area of high information density while also including sufficient whitespace to allow the elements to breathe and be easily distinguished from one another. One way of achieving this was to introduce generous whitespace along the x-axis by utilising more horizontal space between the icons and labels.
Conclusion
A well-designed navigation sidebar is more than just a menu; it is essential for providing an intuitive user experience in digital products. By understanding user needs, prioritising content, utilising effective visual elements, and testing iteratively, product designers can create navigation sidebars that enhance usability, support efficient task completion, and improve overall user satisfaction.
The redesign of the Detected sidebar was a task that was carefully considered and crafted, and it has been a big success since launch. Implementing these tips ensures that your navigation sidebar not only guides users seamlessly through the interface but also reflects the professionalism and usability standards of modern digital products.
