customizing jekyll navigation menus for better user experience

customizing jekyll navigation menus for better user experience

Importance of Navigation in Website UX

Navigation menus are critical to guiding visitors through your website. A well-designed menu improves engagement, reduces bounce rates, and helps users find information quickly. Jekyll, being a static site generator, allows flexible customization of navigation through layouts, includes, and data files.

Basic Navigation Setup in Jekyll

At the simplest level, a navigation menu can be hardcoded in a layout or include file:


  
    Home
    About
    Blog
    Contact

This approach works for small sites but quickly becomes cumbersome as pages grow.

Using Data Files for Dynamic Menus

Store menu items in a _data/navigation.yml file:

- title: "Home"
  url: "/"
- title: "About"
  url: "/about/"
- title: "Services"
  url: "/services/"
  children:
    - title: "SEO"
      url: "/services/seo/"
    - title: "Content Marketing"
      url: "/services/content-marketing/"
- title: "Blog"
  url: "/blog/"
- title: "Contact"
  url: "/contact/"

Render this in your layout or include with Liquid:

{% raw %}

  
  {% for item in site.data.navigation %}
    
      {{ item.title }}
      {% if item.children %}
      
        {% for child in item.children %}
          {{ child.title }}
        {% endfor %}
      
      {% endif %}
    
  {% endfor %}
  

{% endraw %}

Highlighting Active Pages

To improve UX, highlight the current page's navigation item. This can be done by comparing the page URL with menu URLs:

{% raw %}

  {{ item.title }}

{% endraw %}

Apply CSS styles to the .active class for visual feedback.

Responsive Navigation

Mobile-friendly menus are essential. Common techniques include:

Hamburger Menus: Hide navigation behind a toggle button on small screens.
Dropdowns: Use nested lists for submenus with hover or click triggers.
CSS Flexbox/Grid: Create flexible layouts that adjust based on screen size.

Example: Simple Hamburger Toggle with JavaScript

Accessibility Considerations

Use semantic HTML elements like <nav>.
Ensure keyboard navigation works for dropdowns and toggles.
Use ARIA attributes where necessary (e.g., aria-expanded).

Case Study: E-Commerce Site Navigation

An online store revamped their Jekyll navigation to use data-driven menus with nested categories. This allowed marketing teams to easily update categories without touching code, improved user retention by 20%, and lowered bounce rates on product pages.

Tips for Managing Navigation at Scale

Use clear naming conventions for menu item keys and URLs.
Keep menus concise to avoid overwhelming users.
Test navigation across devices and screen sizes regularly.
Leverage includes for reusable navigation components.

Conclusion

Customizing navigation menus in Jekyll with data files and templates leads to a more manageable, scalable, and user-friendly site. Thoughtful UX design combined with clean code improves both visitor satisfaction and SEO performance.