2.5.1.2-2 Minimal Navigation Path Distance

Short navigation paths should be provided between display pages that will be used one after the other.

Additional Information:
Minimizing the navigation distance can reduce the amount of time that information must be held in working memory, thereby reducing cognitive demands on the user. One approach may be to provide broad, shallow menu structures rather than narrow, deep ones. However, the former may be impractical if the total number of menu items is large and the display devices have limited space for presenting them. In such cases, additional navigational mechanisms should be considered such as direct keyword retrieval. Other features for reducing navigation distance should be used such as navigation shortcuts (e.g., buttons for jumping to the top of the menu or major branches without accessing intermediate nodes) and buttons for accessing previous displays.