“Should we organise the menu by services or audiences?” sounds like a design question, but it is about recognition. Visitors must be able to choose a starting point without first understanding the internal organisation. A service menu works when people can already describe what they need. Audience-specific entry points can help when the same service needs a different explanation in different situations. Both choices need a content-based assessment.
Investigate the words visitors use
Collect wording from recent enquiries and conversations. Pay attention to the difference between employees' words and customers' words. An organisation may speak internally about implementation support, while a visitor asks how to replace an existing system. The second phrase describes a recognisable problem; the first names a solution that requires prior knowledge.
Write the main topics on separate cards. Ask a few people who are not involved in developing the website to group and name them. Ask why a topic belongs in a particular place. The aim is not a statistically proven menu, but insight into confusing terms and unexpected connections. Use the findings to inform specific design choices.
Avoid placing one visitor in several categories
A fictional consultancy is considering the groups “entrepreneurs”, “employers” and “growing businesses”. Many visitors fit all three. They therefore cannot predict which information lies behind an entry point. An audience-based structure works better when the differences also lead to different tasks and content. A different form of address alone is not a sufficient reason for three near-identical pages.
Services can overlap too. Without explanation, “advice”, “guidance” and “support” offer little distinction. Name the concrete outcome or the situation in which the service is used. A navigation label does not have to repeat an offering's full commercial name, provided the relationship becomes clear on the destination page.
Combine structures at different levels
A website does not need to organise everything in the same way. The main menu can list services while an overview page guides visitors from their situation to the right service. Conversely, an audience page can bring relevant services together. The condition is that essential content has one clear main home. Do not copy entire service descriptions to every entry point.
For a new website structure it is useful to record which entry points lead to each page. This reveals connections without expanding the menu. A more detailed topic such as custom or standard software can, for example, be reached from several services while its explanation stays in one place.
Test the menu without visual help
Create a simple text version of the proposed structure. Give participants a specific task, such as finding out how to have an outdated system assessed. Ask which route they choose and what they expect behind the chosen label. Repeat this for a task relevant to a less prominent audience.
Record wrong turns before changing the menu. If someone consistently chooses a different label, terminology may be the problem. If they choose the right branch but cannot find the information, the underlying structure may be too deep or too broad. Resolve these content issues first. A menu is ready for design when visitors can explain the main routes and editors understand where new content belongs.