Navigation Sets (Those Left-Hand Links)
The sidebar menu is the set of links on the left-hand side of the page. The purpose of the sidebar is to show users the available information within a section of pages and provide a way for them to view it.
Sidebar menus can be applied to pages from the back-end editor. Only WordPress Administrators can create new menus and edit current menus. For updates to your site’s navigation menu, contact the Web Content Team.
Dos and Don’ts of Nav Menus
Good practices
- Navigation sets should only include links to pages that also have that navigation applied to them
- A good test for this is to click through all of the links and make sure they don’t change from page to page
- Link titles should be clear and condensed. As much as possible try to keep the title on one line in order to avoid the link appearing as though it is two separate links.
- Multiple headers and groups of links can be included in the set (see image above), but there should be no more than 7 links (or lines) under each header. This way the links are separated into groups and easy to read.
Bad practices
- Links to resources, such as PDFs or pages from different departments/websites, should be in the body of the page, and not in the navigation.
- The navigation set is meant for users to be able to navigate a particular set of pages, so it is confusing for users when they click on one of the links and then the navigation set disappears.
Process for updating and creating menus
Only WordPress Administrators have the ability to access navigation menus. Editors and Contributors will need to contact Web Content to edit or create menus and sidebars.