Companies use
websites to present themselves, their products, and their expertise. People primarily
interact with and navigate websites through webpage menus. Webpage design
theory states that general access is best achieved by conforming to prevailing
designs with which users are already accustomed. One important design decision
is webpage menu placement. Recommendations for webpage menu placement have
lacked rigorous empirical evidence until now.
We investigated the possible implementation of design
recommendations through repeated data collection by observing menu placement on
company homepages. Webpages from a selection of small- and medium-sized
companies in two European countries were surveyed. At three time points, with
five-year intervals, 658 company webpages were visited, observed and central
characteristics of the webpage were registered in a fixed-format schema. The
collection formed a three-wave data panel.
The data from 2009 indicate a state of confusion due
to disorganized webpage menu placement. By 2014, a convention had emerged, with
the majority of company webpages featuring a top menu. By 2019, this tendency
had increased, establishing a de facto standard where nearly all company
websites had a top menu. In conclusion, this study contributes empirical
evidence to the scientific literature on conformity and accustomization for
user behaviour and website design.
