[thelist] cascading menus bad for navigation?

Oliver Lineham oliver at lineham.co.nz
Wed Aug 2 19:14:21 CDT 2000


At 19:09 31/07/00 -0400, you wrote:

>hey, i love them hiermenus, but apparently they aren't all that
>user-friendly...
>
>    http://www.shorewalker.com/design/design116.html

hey, interesting article rudy.

i probably agree that deeply nested hierarchical menus are a bad 
thing.  but have to totally disagree with the writer's conclusions about 
the right-click (context) menu and drop-down menu.

i use right-click all the time, more often than my back button in 
fact.  usually it's to open a link in a new window, other times it's 
probably to save the target of a link.  i find it quick and intuitive, i 
don't even read the menu anymore because i know where things are.

right-click isn't really an option for web design though.  drop-down menus are.

i like drop-down (or fly-out) menus.  a menu bar - whether vertical or 
horizontal - takes up very little screen real estate.  yet it packs in a 
wealth of well-ordered information.  without the drop-down menu, you'd have 
to just take a punt on one of the section titles (like most sites), or use 
the sitemap.

it's just when menus are cascaded that they confuse users, IMO.  anyone can 
handle "About > Contact".  But "About > Contact > Branch offices > Europe" 
is where people get fed up.

the author of the article seems to be advocating the traditional navigation 
system: a list of top-level sections, and a list of subsections of your 
current section.  a drop-down menu is identical, except you can also (if 
you wish) see the subsections of the other sections. nothing is lost.


the only reason i don't use drop-downs (or fly-outs) is 
compatibility.  they require DHTML, and I simply don't trust the browsers 
(present or future) or my DHTML skills.


</ol>

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