Is it a good idea to create a faceted navigation on your footer?

[Ty1986]

Hey everyone,

I am curious to know if anyone has tried to implement faceted navigation on the footer's website. I am asking because top navigation is a sensitive topic and can't be touched. Please share if this is something that works or not?

Thanks

[zeehj]

All great points, Andreas, and thanks for sharing that resource with Ty1986.

I just want to call out user expectation (and ultimately user experience): our expectation is that faceted navigation narrows or alters content on a page. Users _expect _to see this in an easy-to-find place, such as above or to the left of the content the facets will alter. Unless you're proposing a sticky footer-style faceted nav (one that follows the user as they scroll), I encourage you not to use your footer for facets.

[paints-n-design]

First - I never did that. My footers are pretty clean, sometimes links for users in it with easy-to-find content most of them wants to go. But in a lot of cases, there is faceted nav in sidebars. Where is the difference from a mobile-first point of view. Kill the footer and your sidebar is the footer

There are points you can do wrong with faceted nav - doesn't matter where it is. Think here you can find some stuff: https://moz.com/blog/large-site-seo-basics-faceted-navigation

By the way "top navigation cant be touched" is not true. But when it works perfectly you wont touch it. Until it is not, I touch it several times. If there is room for improvement you should do. But yes, it could have huge effects, so you need to be sure about what you are doing.