[Sigia-l] Rollover Navigation Submenus: Usable or not?

[Donna Maurer]

I change my mind frequently on this one...

I have done user research on many sites that have horizonal flyout navigation and 
found that it is technically 'unusable'. People have tremendous difficulty hitting the 
slippery flyout menu 
(like this: http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs%40.nsf/ausstatshome?OpenView)
to the point where I have seen people try to hit a target 6-7 times before they get it 
(and this is people with 'normal' motor skills).

I have also noticed that in these situations, people don't pay *any* attention to the top 
level - they skim through the second level of the navigation looking for something that 
looks relevant. The top level could be named anything as it is the second level that is 
used (hey, I wrote about this once too: 
http://www.maadmob.net/donna/blog/archives/000565.html)

The real advantage is that the second level can provide the additional explanation of 
what a top level category includes (if people use the top level). But if this is the 
solution, perhaps the problem is that the top level is wrong. Perhaps the flyout 
shouldn't lead to discrete subsections but perform this role in another way - by 
providing an explanation rather than a set of links.

I don't know. Sometimes I think that flyout nav (like on this site: http://ato.gov.au/) is 
just lazy IA, sometimes I think it could be useful.

Donna

On 14 Dec 2004 at 12:14, Jon Nakasone wrote:

> Forgive me if this topic has been previously discussed.
> 
> I'm in the process of rapid prototyping a horizontal navigation using
> buttons with DHTML rollover submenus.  In the midst of this I was told
> that this approach is shown to be consistently unusable by many users.
> No elaboration was provided, other than this had been a recurring
> comment in numerous usability seminars at Marketing conferences (yes,
> Marketing conferences).
> 
> Now I know what you're going to say and of course I plan to properly
> test variations of the navigation with our users, but I wanted to
> collect everyone's opinions and experience with this type of
> navigation as I've never heard a blanket statement placed on a UI
> feature made as insistently as this was.
> 
> Many thanks,
> Jon
> 
-- 
Donna Maurer
blog: http://maadmob.net/donna/blog/
work: http://steptwo.com.au/
AOL IM: maadmob