When visiting a website, how do you find the information you’re looking for?
Historically, users have fallen into one of two camps: those who head straight for the search bar (“seekers”) and those who browse through menus (“explorers”).
Seekers know what they are looking for and simply need a quick path to it. Explorers, on the other hand, may be unsure where to begin—or may not trust the site’s internal search. They rely on navigation to orient themselves and understand what the site offers.
For the past 20 years, websites have been designed to support both behaviors, usually pairing a prominent search field with a full-width navigation bar. This approach has served users well. But with the rise of AI-driven search, natural language interfaces, and changing browsing habits, it’s worth asking: Does traditional navigation still matter?
As mobile browsing became dominant, long navigation bars stopped working well on small screens. Designers responded by collapsing navigation behind the now-familiar hamburger icon. On mobile, this makes sense, and most users understand the convention.
But some designers started bringing the hamburger menu to desktop layouts, replacing full navigation with a single icon. The motivation was simplicity: cleaner, more minimalist pages without a bulky navigation bar.
The problem? Navigation exists for a reason. Users don’t often know what it is they are looking for, or what it is they can do on the website.
Hidden navigation reduces exploration. Users can’t scan the main sections of your site at a glance, and not all users will open the menu—even when they should. Research consistently shows that hiding navigation lowers engagement and discoverability. Even on mobile, best practice is to display a few key navigation items to signal what’s available and guide users toward the most important actions.
Traditional site search is keyword-based. It assumes users know which words to use, content is tagged and structured well, and the search engine can rank results effectively.
In reality, internal site search is often frustrating, especially on large, complex websites for government or higher ed. Seekers then abandon the site and return to Google–which may or may not lead them back to your content. Explorers will turn to site navigation, but even they will eventually give up if they can’t find what they need.
Tools like Drupal’s Search API, Solr, or SearchStax can improve things, but they still suffer from varying degrees of keyword limitations, inability to follow user context and ranking challenges.
This is the moment where AI enters the conversation.
Users don’t often know what it is they are looking for, or what it is they can do on the website.
AI-powered search is fundamentally different from traditional search. Instead of crafting keywords, users can ask conversational questions:
- “Tell me about upcoming grants”
- “What does your university offer for students entering college?”
- “Where do I register for classes?”
AI can summarize, interpret intent, and connect concepts across pages, even when users are vague. It can behave like a guide, surfacing content based on what the user has viewed, asked, or clicked.
This blurs the line between seekers and explorers. Suddenly, both groups can use the same conversational interface to navigate complex content. It raises the question: If AI can guide users directly, does the website’s navigation structure still matter?
Despite the power of AI, there are still many reasons users rely on navigation
- Some people simply prefer browsing to searching, or have an aversion to using AI
- Others turn to navigation when search tools fall short
- Many don’t know what to ask or how to phrase their question
But beyond user preference, there’s a deeper reason navigation still matters: AI itself depends on well-structured content.
AI search models don’t “rank pages” like Google, but they still rely heavily on how your content is organized. Elements such as navigation, URL structure, internal linking, page templates, and semantic markup give AI the context it needs to understand your content.
- Clean URLs help AI infer meaning.
- Breadcrumbs and logical navigation make it easier to identify page hierarchy.
- Consistent headings and layouts allow AI to extract and summarize information accurately.
- Internal links signal relationships and importance between pages.
Conversely, hidden navigation, poorly structured content, vague URLs, and a fragmented information architecture all make it harder for AI to correctly interpret a site.
When structure breaks down, AI is more likely to hallucinate, return incomplete answers, or miss relevant content—not because the information isn’t there, but because the site isn’t giving AI enough signals to understand it.
AI can only be as smart as your content is organized. Good information architecture benefits both people and machines.
AI depends on well-structured content, and good information architecture
At the beginning of this article, we asked: “When visiting a website…” But increasingly, many users don’t visit websites at all.
AI-powered search tools, Google’s AI Overviews, and other aggregators surface answers directly in the browser. Users get summaries, recommendations, or even step-by-step instructions—without ever clicking through.
That makes two things true at once:
- It’s never been more important to offer both effective search and intuitive navigation. If your site is confusing or hard to browse, users will simply give up.
- People are still visiting websites—and will continue to—just with higher expectations. Your content must be clearer, more structured, and more valuable than ever.
AI hasn’t eliminated the need for navigation. In many ways, it has reinforced the importance of organizing your content well.
Your organization must meet this higher bar to remain discoverable, useful, and relevant—whether users arrive by search, by AI, or by choice.
Ready to improve your site’s navigation or search experience?
Our team helps organizations build websites that are easy to explore, easy to search, and structured for both humans and AI. Whether you need to rethink your information architecture, improve site search, or prepare your content for AI-driven tools, we can help.
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