Why site navigation needs to follow standard interaction patterns

Navigation problems appear earlier than most teams expect

Most buying journeys start the same way - regardless of how you browse the web.

A customer arrives on a site and will generally use the main navigation to browse the product categories to see what is available.

If that first step becomes unreliable or even unsable, many customers will simply be stopped right there.

That is what makes navigation issues particularly costly. They do not interrupt an active purchase. They prevent product discovery from happening in the first place.

In the example shown in the video, the menu looks completely fine visually. The dropdown opens, the categories are clearly labelled, and the layout appears tidy.

But when the interaction is tested using a keyboard, the behaviour becomes inconsistent.

What happens when the submenu opens

The first problem is that when the submenu opens, keyboard focus does not move into it.

Instead of continuing into the newly opened menu, pressing Tab moves focus to the next top level navigation item.

So while the submenu is visible on screen, the keyboard user cannot actually enter it in the normal way.

That makes the interaction unpredictable.

It also breaks a basic expectation people have when using website navigation. If a menu opens, they expect to be able to move through the options inside that menu. If that does not happen, the interface starts to feel unreliable.

Why that happens

In the example in the video above, the submenu exists earlier in the code than the control that opens it.

That means the customer has already technically tabbed past it before having the opportunity to explore it.

So when the menu appears, the only way to reach it is to reverse direction and tab backwards. Most people will not expect that, and many will not realise that is what they need to do.

This is exactly why established interaction patterns matter.

People should not have to work out a custom logic system just to browse a category menu. They should be able to rely on the same predictable behaviour they encounter across other well built sites.

The second problem: a link acting like a button

The second issue is more subtle, but just as important.

The menu control is coded as a link, but behaves like a button.

That might sound like a small technical distinction, but it changes how the control is understood.

A link is expected to take the user to another page.

A button is expected to perform an action on the current page, such as opening a menu, opening a modal, or submitting a form.

When a control is announced as one thing but behaves like another, the interface becomes harder to understand. Screen readers and other assistive technologies rely on those roles being accurate. More broadly, customers rely on those conventions too, whether they are consciously aware of them or not.

This is not just about technical correctness. It is about keeping the interface understandable at the point where customers are trying to explore what you sell.

What established interaction patterns actually look like

Established interaction patterns are simply the behaviours customers already expect from navigation because they encounter them on most well built websites.

When a submenu opens, keyboard focus should move into that submenu so the customer can immediately explore the options.

The control that opens the submenu should behave like a button, because it is performing an action on the current page rather than taking the customer somewhere new.

Once inside the submenu, the customer should be able to move through the available options in a logical and predictable order.

And if they decide not to continue, pressing Escape should close the menu and return focus to the control that opened it.

Nothing clever or surprising. Just predictable behaviour that lets people browse categories confidently.

Why this matters commercially

When navigation becomes unpredictable, browsing breaks down.

And if customers cannot reliably browse your categories, they never reach the product pages where they can actually buy.

That makes navigation accessibility a commercial issue, not just a technical one.

You may have strong products, good pricing, solid photography, and a well optimised checkout. But if the path into your catalogue breaks down for some customers at the navigation stage, those strengths do not get a chance to matter.

That is the real risk with interaction problems like this. They interrupt intent before the customer has even reached the page designed to convert them.

For businesses, that means lost discovery, fewer product views, and fewer customers making it into the buying journey at all.

How to check your own site

You do not need specialist tools to spot this.

Start with your own main navigation and put your mouse to one side.

Then test it like this:

1. Press Tab through the main navigation.
2. Open any submenu using the keyboard.
3. Watch where focus goes next.
4. Try moving through the submenu options.
5. Press Escape and check whether focus returns to the control that opened the menu.

If focus skips past the submenu, jumps somewhere unexpected, or leaves you unable to explore the category links in a normal way, the navigation is not behaving as customers expect.

That is your signal that the menu needs attention.

The takeaway

Custom navigation can absolutely work well.

But once you move away from native browser behaviour, you take responsibility for recreating the interaction patterns people already rely on.

In practice, that usually means getting three fundamentals right:

• using the correct control type
• moving focus into opened menus
• keeping the interaction predictable

When those fundamentals are right, navigation feels effortless. Customers can browse categories naturally, understand what is available, and move toward the products they want.

When those fundamentals are missing, some customers will never reach those products at all.

And for an online store, that is not a small usability issue.

It is a missed commercial opportunity happening right at the front door.