Five navigation patterns that scale with your product
Tabs, groups, and landing pages — how to organize docs so new features do not collapse your sidebar.
Start from jobs, not org charts
Readers arrive with tasks: install, authenticate, deploy, troubleshoot. Group pages by those jobs instead of mirroring internal team names.
Patterns that work
Most growing products combine a few repeatable patterns. Mix them deliberately — too many tabs feels like separate sites; too few groups feels endless.
- Getting started path: Three to five pages max: install, quickstart, first API call.
- Guides vs reference split: Narrative guides in one tab; API fields and endpoints in another.
- Framework landing pages: One page per stack (Next.js, Python) linking into shared core guides.
- Changelog tab: Keep release notes out of the main sidebar search path.
- Internal vs external: Use separate sites or access rules instead of mixing admin docs with public API reference.
When to refactor
If the same page appears in three groups, you need a canonical home and links. If search logs show repeated failed queries, add an alias page or improve the title — not another duplicate.
Docfiy analytics (Business plan) highlights top pages and search gaps so you can prioritize rewrites.
Resources
Related reading
A practical walkthrough: URL in, AI structuring, publish — with tips for keeping navigation clean.
Docfiy Team
6 min read
Readers ask questions in plain language. Docfiy indexes your content so answers surface without extra setup.
Docfiy Team
5 min read