[thelist] Drop-down menu items

Brown, Robert Robert.Brown at lot21.com
Fri Jan 5 11:54:52 CST 2001


Big Sites do use drop downs...

http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/

Dropdown menu's are for data hiding...
They are used to hide the items that are not frequently used or are
considered advanced. In creating navigation you don't want to hide the
popular, or crucial actions, or items. 

Mr. Nielsen argues that drop down menus are used for everything from
specifying parameters, to navigation, and that in doing so the user might
have a problem in perceiving the actions of a drop down menu.

Another issue with creating DHTML drop down menus is creating correct
behaviors of the menu's. From experience in creating DHTML menus in a
design. The menus had somewhere around 7 to 12 different event handlers
attached to each menu...

I would recommended asking yourself, do you really need them. Are they for
the design or the user.

Mr. Nielsen's dropdown article http://useit.com/alertbox/20001112.html



-----Original Message-----
From: Andy Olsen [mailto:andyo at tds.net]
Sent: Friday, January 05, 2001 9:11 AM
To: thelist at lists.evolt.org
Subject: [thelist] Drop-down menu items


What's the rap on drop-down menu items?

I've got a client who requested this. So, I went to 
http://www.webreference.com/dhtml/hiermenus/index.html and got their script 
and modified it. I finally got it worked out and their tech guy started 
saying it was a dumb idea.

Basically, this guy is saying that a) the Big Site don't use it and b) 
Jakob Nielsen says don't use eye candy or unusual navigation items. He is a 
Nielsen acolyte and says we should do what al the big sites do so people 
see things that are not new and they are comfortable with. He also says 
that it is distracting for people when they mouse over the menu on the way 
elsewheres and the menu pops up.

My point is that the techniques were dropped for some time because of the 
shaky implementation of javascript. Now, however, JS implementation is 
getting better, and 83% or more of the users out there have browsers that 
can handle this. The menus can be built to degrade gracefully for other
users.

So, why do the big sites not use this? Is it a disaster?

And, for the love of Pete, why is Jakob Nielsen's site so ghastly if he is 
such a guru? 


---------------------------------------
For unsubscribe and other options, including
the Tip Harvester and archive of TheList go to:
http://lists.evolt.org Workers of the Web, evolt ! 




More information about the thelist mailing list