If a visitor cannot find a game trailer, press kit, careers page, or contact person within a few seconds, they are unlikely to keep looking. Navigation is not decoration around the content. It is how players, publishers, journalists, candidates, and partners get to a useful next step without having to decipher the site.
For game studios and industry organisations, one website often has to serve several audiences with very different needs. A player may be checking platform availability and age ratings. A publisher may need a concise studio profile and a playable build. A candidate may be looking for open roles and a sense of the team. Clear navigation rarely calls for a full redesign. More often, it comes down to better labels, fewer competing routes, and regular checks of the tasks people actually try to complete.
Start with the tasks visitors need to complete
Menus should reflect what visitors want to do, not how the company is organised internally. Teams often group pages around departments with labels such as “Corporate,” “Solutions,” “Resources,” or “Operations.” Those terms may work inside the business, but they make outside visitors guess which team owns the information they need.
List the most important visitor tasks before deciding what belongs in the main menu. For a game studio, that list might include:
- Learn what the current game is and where it can be played
- Watch a trailer or see gameplay
- Find age ratings, supported platforms, languages, and release status
- Contact the studio for press, business, or support matters
- Apply for an open role or understand the studio’s hiring approach
- Find a press kit, logos, screenshots, and factual company information
- Register for an industry event, view its agenda, or identify partnership opportunities
Put the highest-value tasks where visitors can spot them immediately. A studio with one flagship title may need “Game,” “About,” “Careers,” and “Contact” in its main menu. An event organiser may instead lead with “Programme,” “Speakers,” “Tickets,” “Partners,” and “Venue.” The labels will differ, but the rule is the same: menu options should correspond to actions people expect to take.
Use labels that mean one thing
Specific labels reduce hesitation. “Games” is clearer than “Our Universe.” “Careers” is clearer than “Join the Journey.” “Press” is clearer than “Media Hub” when the page contains press releases, downloadable assets, and contact details. Creative language still has a place in headlines and campaign copy; primary navigation works best with plain, familiar terms.
Try showing a menu item to someone outside the organisation and asking what they expect to find after clicking it. If the answers vary widely, the label needs work. “Resources,” for example, might suggest articles, documentation, downloadable assets, customer support, or investor material. It is usually better to split that material into clear choices than ask visitors to investigate.
Keep navigation terms consistent across the site
Do not call a page “Jobs” in the header, “Careers” in the footer, and “Work With Us” in a call to action. None of those choices is disastrous on its own, but together they make the site harder to predict. Pick one term for each destination and use it in menus, buttons, headings, breadcrumbs, and internal links.
This matters especially on sites with campaign pages, archived news, event microsites, and game-specific landing pages. Someone arriving through a social post or search result should still recognise the routes back to the main site.
Limit the main menu to the essentials
A crowded header makes every option harder to spot. When ten or twelve items have equal prominence in a navigation bar, visitors have to stop and scan instead of moving with confidence. Most sites benefit from keeping the top level for a small number of long-term destinations.
Secondary material can sit in dropdowns, section landing pages, the footer, or contextual links on relevant pages. The aim is not to bury useful information. It is to give the site a clear hierarchy.
| Content type | Best navigation location | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Current game or core product | Primary menu | It is often the main reason visitors arrive. |
| Careers and open roles | Primary menu or clearly visible utility link | Candidates need a direct path and should not have to search company pages. |
| Privacy policy, terms, cookies | Footer | Necessary information, but rarely a primary browsing task. |
| Press kit and logos | Press page, linked from primary or footer navigation | Useful to a distinct audience without overloading the header. |
| Individual blog posts or news updates | News or Insights landing page | Categories and search can help visitors browse a growing archive. |
If dropdown menus are needed, keep them shallow. Visitors should not have to pass through three or four fly-out levels to reach a page. Deep menus are awkward with a mouse and especially frustrating on touch screens. A well-structured landing page with short descriptions and grouped links is often easier to use.
Make the route visible at every stage
People do not arrive through the homepage alone. Search results, newsletters, social posts, press mentions, and direct messages often send them straight to a deeper page. Every important page should quickly answer three questions: where am I, what else is in this section, and how do I get back?
A persistent header answers part of that question. Breadcrumbs can help on larger sites with nested content, such as News > Events > 2025 Programme. They are useful when they show a real hierarchy, rather than acting as a decorative line of links.
Section-level navigation also has a role. On a game page, compact in-page links might point to “Overview,” “Features,” “Platforms,” “Accessibility,” “FAQ,” and “Support.” An event page may use “Agenda,” “Speakers,” “Partners,” “Travel,” and “Contact.” These links should be easy to find without taking over the main message of the page.
Use meaningful calls to action
Buttons are part of the site’s wayfinding. “Learn more” works when it appears directly below a card that clearly states its subject, but it becomes vague on a dense page with several options. “View open positions,” “Download press kit,” “See the programme,” and “Watch the gameplay trailer” make the next action clear.
Give each page one main action. A game landing page might lead with “Wishlist on PC” or “Play the demo,” while still offering a secondary route to system requirements and support. A studio page for business contacts may be better served by “Contact the business team” than several generic buttons that leave visitors guessing.
Design for mobile navigation first, not last
A mobile menu is not just a desktop menu hidden behind a hamburger icon. Long category names, wide multi-column dropdowns, tiny tap targets, and hover-only interactions break down on smaller screens. The menu should work with a thumb, a keyboard, and a screen reader.
Check these mobile basics:
- Menu buttons have large enough tap areas and adequate spacing.
- Dropdown sections can be expanded deliberately instead of opening only on hover.
- The menu has a clear close control and does not trap keyboard focus.
- Important actions such as “Buy,” “Wishlist,” “Register,” or “Apply” remain easy to find.
- Text remains readable without pinch-zooming.
- Navigation does not cover essential content or jump unexpectedly when a page loads.
Test on an actual phone, not only in a resized browser window. Open the menu, follow several routes, use the back button, rotate the device, and try the site on a slower connection. That work often exposes friction that a desktop review misses.
Build accessibility into the navigation system
Accessible navigation makes a site easier to use for everyone. Keyboard users need to move through menus in a logical order, see a visible focus indicator, and activate controls without a mouse. Screen-reader users need correctly labelled menu buttons and expanded states. Visitors with low vision benefit from sufficient contrast, readable text, and layouts that do not rely on colour alone.
Useful measures include real <button> elements for expandable menus, descriptive labels for icon-only controls, and a clear indication of the current page in the menu. Avoid moving keyboard focus unexpectedly. If a modal menu opens, focus should move into it; when it closes, focus should return to the control that opened it.
Accessibility also applies to linked game information. State age ratings clearly in the relevant game area instead of relying on a small badge alone. Where available, include the rating system, rating category, and relevant content descriptors. This helps players and families make informed choices, particularly for titles intended for mature audiences.
Add search when the content volume justifies it
Search becomes valuable when a site has a sizeable archive of news, support articles, documentation, game updates, or event material. It should support a clear menu rather than replace one. Visitors should be able to understand the main structure before they need to search.
Make search easy to find, support common spelling variations where possible, and return useful results rather than a blank dead end. A strong results page shows titles, short excerpts, and content types, with filters when the archive is large. Track searches with no results: they often point to missing pages, unclear terminology, or information visitors expect to find.
For a studio with a growing news archive, a clearly named “News” section with topic filters is usually more useful than scattering announcements across the homepage. Teams planning recurring updates can align their categories with their publishing plan; the guide to building a content calendar with business purpose offers a useful framework for deciding which content streams need consistent structure.
Use the footer as a dependable safety net
Visitors often scroll to the footer after failing to find something in the header. Treat it as a secondary directory, not an afterthought. Include key company pages, contact routes, legal information, relevant social channels, accessibility information, and an email signup only when the newsletter offers a clear reason to subscribe.
Group links under headings such as “Studio,” “Games,” “Support,” “Press,” and “Legal.” Avoid duplicating every main-menu item alongside dozens of loosely related links. The footer should help people recover from a missed route, not create another cluttered decision point.
Test navigation with evidence, not internal assumptions
Teams know their own site too well to judge its clarity alone. A simple task test with five to eight people can reveal recurring problems. Give participants realistic tasks without telling them where to click: find platform requirements, locate the press contact, identify an open production role, or learn when an event session begins. Watch where they pause and listen to the terms they use.
Analytics can add useful context. Look for pages with unusually high exits, repeated back-and-forth movement between the same pages, low use of important menu items, and internal searches for content that supposedly has an obvious route. No single metric is a verdict; compare it with feedback, support requests, and accessibility checks.
A practical monthly navigation check
- Open the site on a phone and desktop in a private browser window.
- Complete the five most important visitor tasks without using a search engine.
- Check that every menu and footer link works and uses consistent labels.
- Review newly added pages for orphaned content with no route from relevant sections.
- Inspect recent site-search queries and support questions for repeated navigation issues.
- Record changes made and retest the affected journey after publishing.
For a final check, ask a colleague who was not involved in the build to find the contact route for a publishing conversation, then locate a current vacancy using only a mobile phone. If either task requires guessing between vague labels, rename the item or move the destination one level closer to the main menu.
