When do you apply a persistent navigation - is there a minimum page length?

Question

We have pages where it is a very long list of products (often using infinite scrolling), which a persistent navigation would be a very useful device.

However, what about shorter pages that are long enough to start scrolling, but with a finite length, for example a product page. Would these pages also benefit from a persistent navigation?

From what I can see on other websites, they do not use them on these types of pages and I think that is the right direction, but I can't seem to articulate what the reasoning would be.

Answer 1

I would say it depends.

The basic reasoning behind a persistent navigation is to ensure the user can navigate to another section of the site at any time but if your persistent navigation is going to distract the user from making a purchase or distract him from going forward in the conversion funnel, you would be better off focusing his focus on the conversion in mind e.g. clicking on a call to action button rather than using valuable screen space with a persistent navigation. You can also use a persistent anchor scroll on the side to quickly navigate him to the top.

However if the persistent navigation is critical in helping him make a decision then it would be worth having it.

That said, users dont mind scrolling and there are significant research studies that users dont mind using the scrollbar to get back to a point on the page. The quoted text talks about users scrolling to the bottom of the page but I suspect people will be just as willing to scroll back up

Heatmap service provider ClickTale analyzed almost 100.000 pageviews. The result: people used the scrollbar on 76% of the pages, with 22% being scrolled all the way to the bottom regardless of the length of the page. That said, it’s clear that page top is still your most valuable screen estate.

However you can make it easier for them by providing an option to scroll back up automatically as shown below

Hence my recommendation is to analyze how critical the navigation is to your product page and also do some user tests to see the impact it has on your conversions and then define if a persistent navigation is applicable or not.

I also recommend looking at this article on the pros and cons of infinite scrolling for additional inputs on where it should be used.

Answer 2

Your only priority is to implement a consistent navigation pattern so that users can mentally map out how your site works, especially if it's the main menu.

I'm assuming you're talking about an e-commerce platform so you could use a persistent navigation or a persistent sidebar, which would kick in once the viewport has scrolled enough, regardless of the page height.

See schema below.