I'm designing a website that is basically overloaded with information and I need to make a layout that will allow all the information to be taken in but with two restrictions:
- I want a maximum of 3 clicks to get to even the deepest data-point (extremely hard with this much data)
- I would prefer no duplicates of element types. By element types I mean I would prefer not to have a set of tabs where a user selects one and another pair of tabs appears.
I want to allow the user to be able to naturally offset in their mind what type of element controls what data-points. Additionally, because I know someone will ask, I must show the user all the data, it is a requirement.
The idea I have now takes the user about 4 clicks to get to the deepest data-point and utilizes Tabs (as the main structure), a left sidebar, which changes the right to a table structure in the form of a listing, then after clicking on a link in the listing an accordion replaces the table with groups of data.
Are there any better interface elements that could be better utilized that I'm not thinking of?. I don't want to overwhelm the user but in at the same time keep it clean and functional.