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

[Anders Ramsay]

On Fri, 17 Dec 2004 12:39:42 -0600, T. Karsjens <timothy at karsjens.com> wrote:
> I have also tried to make flying menus work with the command onClick,
> instead of onMouseover.  The problem that arises with this approach, which
> closely resembles the OS version of menus, is that you eliminate the
> possibility of actually clicking on the top level item to get to a landing
> page with the sub menu as static links.  When the users saw this, about 40%
> of them balked at not having that secondary landing page, if I remember
> correctly, although it could have been the other way, with 60% missing the
> landing page.

IMO, flyout menus on the web are all too often a misguided
bastardization of the desktop menu paradigm (such as what was
mentioned earlier about having them appear on hover)  Not to be too
tongue in cheek here, but what is the landing page of the 'File' or
'Edit' menu in a desktop app?  I'd be very interested in seeing this
design in which users balked at there not being a landing page.  Did
it have the affordances of a desktop-like menu (no expectation of
landing page), or a web navigation menu (more likely expectation of
landing page)

-a