WCAG 3.2.3: Consistent Navigation
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What's it about?
Recurring navigation mechanisms should remain consistent across all pages. Main menus, breadcrumbs, or footer links should always appear in the same place and function the same way.
How to
Depending on your situation, you can implement one of the following options to meet the criterion. For a deeper dive, please refer to the linked WCAG techniques.
Consistent placement
Navigation components should appear in the same place on every page, and the order of links within a menu should remain consistent. Additional sub-links may be added or removed as long as the existing order of the main links stays unchanged.
Example: A navigation menu. When clicking the “Services” menu item, you land on a subpage where additional links to individual services appear. When navigating away from that page, the service links disappear again. However, the rest of the menu items always remain in the same order.
Notes
Exception: Process pages
Multi-step flows such as checkout, registration, or quizzes can be treated as their own sections. In these areas, the navigation may differ from the rest of the site — for example, through buttons like “Back” and “Next” to guide users step by step through the process.
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