9
High
Sports Article
Overloaded sports nav menu
The sports article navigation presents 19 top-level items, causing choice overload and diluting focus from the article content.
scroll ↕ — this is the live page
⚠ Overloaded sports nav menuThe sports article navigation presents 19 top-level items, causing choice overload and diluting focus from the article content.
Fix
Evidence
Observed on the live site
✓ Flagged independently by 1 of 7 analysts
- Nav_items list includes: NFL, Fantasy, NBA, MLB, NCAAF, NHL, WNBA, Golf, Tennis, Betting, NCAAB, NCAAW, Fantasy Football 2026, Lacrosse, Swimming, plus generic News, Finance, Sports, Mail, Sign in.
- 19 nav items in the sports submenu; users may struggle to find relevant content, increasing cognitive load.
Business case
If this change wins
0.2 – 1.0
orders per 1,000 visitors
Medium
Effort — 2-5 days
Not A/B testable
At typical traffic
Detecting this needs about 315,206 visitors per variant. Ship it as a sequenced change and log the date instead.
Prioritisation
PXL score: 5 / 10
Assessed from the live page
| Question | Answer | Points |
|---|---|---|
| Is the change above the fold? | Yes | 1 |
| Is the change noticeable in under 5 seconds? | Yes | 2 |
| Does it add or remove an element? | Yes | 1 |
| Does it run on a high-traffic page? | Yes | 1 |
| Verified by direct technical measurement? | No | 0 |
Criteria that need your data
4 of these could not be answered from the live page. Session recordings, survey or support themes, and analytics access would raise the confidence of this ranking — they do not indicate a weaker finding.
| Question | Answer | Points |
|---|---|---|
| Discovered via user testing? | No | 0 |
| Discovered via qualitative feedback (survey, support)? | No | 0 |
| Supported by heatmaps or session recordings? | No | 0 |
| Found via digital analytics or real-user field data? | No | 0 |
Implementation
Hand this to your developer
- Surface
- Sports Article — SPORTS ARTICLE | NAV
- Problem
- The sports article navigation presents 19 top-level items, causing choice overload and diluting focus from the article content.
- Current state
- h1: J.J. McCarthy to miss Broncos game, reportedly ‘not comfortable’ after injury; cta: Sign in, Watch, Schedule, Get Fantasy Plus, Watch on X; notes: 19 nav items in the sports submenu; users may struggle to find relevant content, increasing cognitive load.
- Change
- h1: J.J. McCarthy to miss Broncos game, reportedly ‘not comfortable’ after injury; cta: Sign in, Watch, Schedule, Get Fantasy Plus, Watch on X; notes: Consolidate to 5-7 primary sports categories (e.g., NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, Soccer, Fantasy) and place secondary sports under a 'More' dropdown.
- Acceptance criteria
- GIVEN a first-time visitor on the affected page
WHEN the change is live
THEN Consolidate to 5-7 primary sports categories (e.g., NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, Soccer, Fantasy) and place secondary sports under a 'More' dropdown, with no regression at 375px and 1280px widths. - Tracking
- event: cro_overloaded_sports_nav_menu on interaction with the changed element; verify it fires in BOTH variants before opening traffic.
- Success metric
- conversion rate on the affected step
- QA checklist
- Chrome / Safari / Firefox · 375px + 1280px · keyboard reachable · screen-reader name present · no CLS introduced
- Effort
- Medium — 2-5 days
- Test plan
- 315,206 visitors per variant (95% significance, 80% power); duration depends on traffic.
- Rollback
- Feature-flag the change; revert the flag if the primary metric drops for 3 consecutive days.