Why are the users complaining of getting lost using this navigation menu?

Question

Inside the website kteohellas.gr there is a subsection where it is explained in plain Greek what is the procedure to be followed in case you want to transfer a motorcycle from one owner to another.

First of all this is the original "homepage" for the section in question:

Now let's say that the user's attention goes to the last item of the right-menu: "Τι να προσέξετε" and he/she goes ahead and clicks it.

The current implementation includes a breadcrumb and it also makes the clicked menu item disappear so we could have only the rest of the options available for the user to click on. This is how it looks like after clicking it:

Why are the users complaining that they have trouble going through the entire process which includes checking all the menu items of course?!

Note that this is a Q&A to share knowledge

Answer 1

In general the menu items don't just disappear!

The user is expecting to have all the menu items intact since each one represents an important step of the process.

This is a typical case of the visibility of system status issue.

Take the example of a user who is navigating the process but suddenly the phone rings or he/she has to answer an urgent email. When the user returns back to your webpage he/she might not be able to recall from memory the state he was before the interruption. The breadcrumb is an indication that could give a hint but this is not enough.

The user's goal is to read or note down the process and not to keep track of your menu items. My best guess is that a "lost" user will keep the homepage open in a tab and middle click the menu items to open them in a new tab and therefore keep track of what he/she is doing. Two tabs, the homepage and the currently opened menu item, give him/her the system status that he/she is looking for.

My best suggestion of a quick fix, with minimal implementation overhead, is to keep the menu item visible and make it stand out by simply setting its width larger than the rest of the items:

Answer 2

It is nice that you have included the breadcrumbs, unfortunately it's not working too well. Listen to your users and one of the things you could do it A/B testing to find out what works better. But there are few simple things to do to make it obvious to a user where they are. Differentiate between non/active menu item, this can be done using colour, size, position.

Take a look at gov.uk and see how they solved the issue of complex navigation.