[TMLewiss]

I am in the process of designing the layout for a new site I am creating. However there is going to be an enormous amount of information on the site. This is just at launch, through expansion I will be adding even more. The problem is, most of this content is contained in its own category; each with their own subcategories. Hence, I am trying to figure out how I am going to be able to incorporate so many links into a menu that is not cumbersome and overwhelming. Most importantly, I want it to be quickly navigated. Anyone have any ideas or site they know of that have good solutions for this problem?

It obviously is going to have to be dynamic in nature. There is no other way to contain that much information. However, dynamic menus usually tend to be less work flow effective when navigating the site. So there in lies the problem.

By the way, so far there are 27 categories and each with around 5 subcategories...

There is no restriction to what I can use to create it, any language, any plug in, anything.

[karmedic]

Unless you normalize your categorization a bit more i'm not sure you'll be able to give your visitors anything truly navigable with that many top-level choices.

Are you able to give us the 27 categories and their subcategories? I'd be more than willing to bounce some ideas of section headings ...

[pgo]

Keep the categories separate from your main navigation and do sort of an accordion that reveals only the subcategories for the currently selected category.

Or do a multi-level dropdown.

[KarateRobot]

I think the main things are:

a) don't reinvent the wheel, and
b) make sure your taxonomy makes sense to your users

So, use some kinda proven browsing method, be it a drop-down (or fly-out) menu, or a hierarchical tree (collapsible or otherwise), or whatever -- just make sure it's something well-known and familiar.

For organization, I think you should see whether you can't reduce the number of top-level categories you've got. 27 seems like too many to me, considering that the Dewey Decimal System can fit everything in the universe into just 10 top level categories.

I don't know how much control over it you have, but you may consider running some tests (such as a card sort) on people in your potential user base.

[TMLewiss]

thanks for the ideas, I decided what I am going to do. I am going to make a drop down menu system. I can recreate it later if I need to. I mean I can put all the information in about 5 main categories.