{"id":211,"slug":"rule-expose-industry-and-service-as-orthogonal-axes","title":"RULE: Expose Industries and Services as two orthogonal axes in the top nav. Don't hide one behind the other.","kind":"rule","scope":"business","status":"current","audiences":["claude-code","dev","candid-team"],"topics":["information-architecture","navigation-design"],"reference_body":"**Rule:** Multi-vertical service business sites expose **both axes** — Industries (vertical) and Services (capability) — at the top navigation. Don't bury one as a sub-menu under the other.\n\n**Why:** Buyers enter the site with different mental models. Some search by industry (\"agricultural lubricant supplier\"); some by service (\"bulk fuel delivery\"). The dominant working model in the field (Crowe, Dentons, HUB International, RelaDyne, E.H. Wolf) is **both axes visible simultaneously**. Industries-only nav fails the service-led buyer; services-only nav fails the industry-led buyer.\n\nPer [[gartner-six-buying-jobs-non-linear]], B2B buyers loop between \"solution exploration\" (industry-led) and \"supplier selection\" (service-led) — the IA must support re-entry from either axis at any time.\n\n**How to apply:**\n- Top nav has Industries and Services as separate top-level items\n- Hover/click on each opens a mega menu listing the sub-items (with [[nng-mega-menu-hover-protocol-500ms]])\n- Each vertical page links out to relevant services; each service page links out to relevant industries\n- The decision of which axis is **primary** (left of the other in the nav) depends on the business: distributors typically lead with industry; accounting firms lead with service (see [[ia-decision-matrix-by-business-shape]])","rationale_body":null,"metadata":null,"links":{"outgoing":[{"slug":"crowe-cleanest-industries-slug-pattern","title":"Crowe LLP: cleanest /industries/<slug>/ URL pattern in the sample (Audit/Tax/Advisory/Consulting × industries)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"depends-on"},{"slug":"dentons-find-your-team-matrix-pattern","title":"Dentons: explicit Industries × Practices matrix at /find-your-dentons-team/ — \"organized around your business agenda\"","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"depends-on"},{"slug":"gartner-six-buying-jobs-non-linear","title":"Gartner: B2B buyers complete \"six buying jobs\" in non-linear \"looping\" order","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"depends-on"},{"slug":"nng-mega-menu-hover-protocol-500ms","title":"NN/g mega-menu hover protocol: wait 0.5s before showing, then display within 0.1s","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"depends-on"}],"incoming":[{"slug":"research-brief-ia-multi-vertical-service-business","title":"Research brief: Information architecture for service businesses with multiple verticals (piece 6 of 15)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"}]},"created_at":"2026-05-22T19:40:49.153Z","updated_at":"2026-05-22T19:40:49.153Z"}