Navigation Skill

How this skill behaves (read first)

This is a generative skill. The default failure modes: pattern-by-habit (a top bar with a hamburger regardless of IA depth, breadth, or platform), hidden essentials (core sections buried behind icons), and missing wayfinding (no "you are here" signals, so users dropped in by search are lost). Navigation is chosen by the structure of the content and how users move through it — not by what modern sites look like. This skill gates:

1. Establish the IA shape and platform — these mostly decide the pattern.
2. Apply the always-true core — system layering, wayfinding signals, visible essentials, interaction basics.
3. Surface the pattern decisions (top bar vs. sidebar, hamburger, mega menu, tabs, breadcrumbs, pagination vs. infinite scroll) with trade-offs.

Then it hands off to ux-heuristics-audit, ux-accessibility-audit, ux-aesthetics-audit, and ux-microcopy-audit — and, as a multi-screen structure, to ux-information-architecture-audit.

Step 0 — Establish context before designing

Ask if not known; state the assumption if proceeding without an answer: