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Building navigation in Content Studio

The site's global navigation is essential for great user experiences and information architecture.

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The menu and footer are so-called global elements that exist across the entire site as a navigation tool for the users.

The navigation bar consists of a global toplevel and a local sublevel, which may consist of simple links or expandables that display several menu items and call to actions.

The footer is very flexible and may or may not include up to three navigation groups that apply globally or locally.

In our content model, all navigation elements are created with four different content types from the bottom-up:

The navigation is built with

Sublevels

Add expandables with menu items or direct links in the different contextual navigation bars.

Toplevels

Allow users to switch navigational context with different front pages and menu items.

Navigation

Create a global navigation bar at the top of the page or a footer at the bottom of the page.

Footer navigation group

Add up to three groups of menu items to let the users navigate to secondary tasks in the footer.

Sublevels

The content type Sublevel represents the local, yellow part of the navigation bar. Sublevels could be 

  • Insurances
  • Pension plans
  • Customer service (links to a 
  • Report claim

Within each sublevel, you add the different menu items and call to actions you'd like to display.

Menu items are displayed as simple links, and could typically be different products or services.

Call to actions are displayed as action buttons. They could be anything, typically advantages, discounts or activities.

Toplevels

The global toplevel acts a bit like toggles with two functions:

  1. Directing the users to a new front page
  2. Changing the navigation's local sublevel

In each of the Toplevels you've added to the navbar, you select what navigation to display within them.

These could be either expandable menus (sublevels) or clickable links (targets). 

Navigation

To create either a navigation bar at the top of the page or a footer at the bottom, we use the content type "Navigation".

You may create several different navigation versions, but only one can be published to the page.

Navbar

First, select or create toplevels with a target.

Secondly, you may add an optional action button, located between the "Search" and "Log in" buttons at the top right corner of the global level. This button should be used for your site's top task, such as report claim and the target page should serve all users and contexts equally.

Footer

The global footer consists of several elements:

  • Optional footer navigation
  • Links (such as "terms and conditions", "cookie settings" or "privacy and security")
  • Phone number
  • "Call me"
  • Email
  • Social media links
  • Copyright message

The footer itself is built with the Navigation content type and added to your site through the "Global settings" menu when editing the root.

The optional footer navigation is built using the content type "Footer Navigation Group".

Footer Navigation Group

You may add up to three groups of menu items in the footer by creating a new "Footer Navigation Group" per column. Each group requires a title and a set of menu items.

You may set only a global footer navigation that is the same across the whole site, or create additional local footer navigations. When adding the local footer navigation, you must select a path on which it will appear.

Using paths
For instance, if you wish to display two different footer navigations for commercial and private customers, you will create a global navigation for private customers and a local navigation for commercial customers, selecting the page with the /commercial/ URL. This means that both gjensidige.com/commercial and gjensidige.com/commercial/insurances/car-insurance/kasko (and all pages in between them) will display the local navigation. A rule of thumb is to select a page or application as far down in the path as you'd like it.

To remove the global footer navigation from a certain page, application or path, add it to a local navigation and leave the "Groups" option blank.

What do I put in the footer navigation?

Before you create footer navigation for your site, consider that not all sites require footer navigation. While there are many ways to use it, we mainly use it for secondary tasks at Gjensidige. This is normally topics such as "About us", a selection of customer service tasks or ways to get an overview of products and services.

Implementing a new navigation

  1. Edit the site/root
  2. Scroll down to the "Global settings" options in the left side menu
  3. Add your new navigation bar to the "Top navigation"
  4. If you want to use the optional footer navigation, you may add that to the "Footer navigation"
  5. Add the different types of contact information you want in the footer
  6. Save and publish the site