[Sigia-l] Mega Dropdowns Good or Bad?

[Jonathan Baker-Bates]

Hey Tom - it's just you and me on this list, you realise :-)

On your first question - my initial stance has been (with what I've always
called "doormat" navigation, not mega, but hey) that persistent nav
(left/right) is objectively easier to use if the site in question doesn't
have much information to navigate. This is because you can see it all at a
glance. So if you're talking usability, that's unassailable, no matter how
rich and famous you are. But persistent nav doesn't scale beyond about 5-10
sections with a couple of child sections for each, because then scrolling
kicks in and destroys the utility of being able to see it all without
interaction (and the goal of interaction design, as we all know, is to
eliminate interaction). So megas are probably a better bet once persistent
nav is impractical - at the cost of interaction.

On a side note, many mega navs trigger too fast - compare
http://www.marksandspencer.com/ (good) with http://www.johnlewis.com (bad).
I sometimes wonder if this is a sign that the designers and developers
aren't talking to one another. A zero millisecond delay on a menu is just
dumb when there are items above it.

Question 2 is interesting. I've not personally seen any (other than in
specialised context like command line navs in call centres), but I'd love
to have seen the test site that David Danielson used for his 2000 paper on
persistent site maps: http://www.citeulike.org/user/palakorn/article/550089
I read this paper a while ago and if you can track it down it's a great
example of some really good usability research.

Jonathan




On 21 May 2013 18:34, Tom Donehower <tdonehower at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Was in a meeting with a client on Friday showing a redesigned website that
> used Mega-dropdowns. Client said the site looked nice, but that he felt
> persistent left or right navigation was more useable than mega-dropdowns.
>
> The marketing team at the client was pushing against persistent left or
> right nav because they said it made the site design feel dated. It does
> seem like it's fading ever since Jacob Neilsen published his article on the
> usability of megas.
> http://www.nngroup.com/articles/mega-menus-work-well/
>
>
> I was asked my opinion and said it basically depends on what the user is
> trying to do. If they're navigating to a section and most likely looking
> for one thing among many options, then mega-dropdown should be fine.
> However, if the user is navigating to a section and has the need to browse
> across sub-categories in that section then some sort of persistent
> navigation makes sense.
>
> Perhaps the best approach is not Either/Or but some sort of combination of
> the two schemes.
>
> 2 questions for the community:
>
> 1. What's your opinion of the usability of megas vs. old-school persistent
> left and right nav?
>
> 2. Have you seen any other forms of persistent nav schemes beyond the
> traditional left and right that work well?
>
> Best,
>
> -Tom
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