Designed for Use, 2nd Edition

Shallow or Deep?

A lot of the time, people evaluate user interfaces by counting clicks. How many times does the user have to click to reach the goal? It makes intuitive sense to assume that fewer clicks are better.

This focus on counting clicks might tempt you to keep hierarchies as shallow as possible, making every possible goal reachable with the fewest clicks. Although it may often make sense to make sure that people can access a small number of important, often used features with few clicks, I advise against intentionally trying to achieve shallow hierarchies, because these force users to choose from a bigger number of possible actions at each level of the hierarchy. By cutting down on the depth of a hierarchy, you are increasing the potential ...