Consistent navigation
Navigation that repeats across your website, such as menus, search boxes, and skip links, should appear in the same relative order on every page. This check asks you to review your pages for consistency, because judging what counts as the same navigation across pages requires human judgment.
Why this matters
Visitors build a mental map of your site: the menu is at the top, in this order; the search box is after it; the footer links come last. When pages shuffle that order, everyone slows down, and some people are hit much harder. People with low vision working at high magnification see only a small part of the page at a time and rely on things being where they were before. People using move through elements in sequence, and a reshuffled order costs them a fresh exploration of every page. People with cognitive or memory difficulties may lose track entirely.
This is success criterion 3.2.3 (Consistent Navigation), a requirement, so it is part of the conformance target most organizations aim for.
How to fix it
This is a manual review. Across your pages:
- Identify the navigation that repeats: main menus, breadcrumbs, search boxes, skip links, and footer link groups.
- Confirm each appears in the same relative order everywhere it repeats. Items may be added or removed between pages - what matters is that the items present keep their order.
- The easiest guarantee is a shared template: define navigation once and reuse it on every page rather than rebuilding it per page.
- Reordering initiated by the visitor, such as a sort preference they chose, is allowed. When your navigation checks out, the finding.
How Silktide tests this
- Raise one review prompt per page. Recognizing repeated navigation and comparing its order across a whole site requires judgment no automated test can reliably provide, so Silktide prompts you to review rather than guessing.
- The prompt does not mean inconsistencies were found; it records that the comparison is yours to make.
Troubleshooting
Why does this appear on every page?
Because navigation consistency cannot be judged automatically, the check errs on the side of asking. Approving a page records that you have reviewed it.
A section has its own navigation
Different sections may have different menus - that is not a failure. The requirement applies to navigation that is repeated across pages: wherever it repeats, its order must hold.