I’m not the worlds biggest fan of drop down or expandable menu’s, but I would not dismiss using them. They often improve navigation. My big problem with them is they are often tiny, or clumsy, and end up creating more work than they are worth.
Yesterday I was doing an analysis of this site, Spanish Courses in Argentina, and found a fantastic example on how to do one right.
Why is it Great?
First, the main menu items have drop down arrows indicating that there is more below. Many, or should I say most sites do not have that. Those sites need to get with the plan, and start including them.
Second, text and menu was large enough that it was easy to use with little chance for error.
Third, the hyperlinks were expanded beyond just the text. This makes it even easier to use without error. Notice the highlighted “Contact Us” link that I have taken in the screenshot. The entire orange space is the hyperlink, not just the text.
Fourth, clicking on the main menu buttons without expanding them still navigates you to the first page listed. It’s not just a title, it’s as it appears, a link.
Finally, the fith great technique they used was to have the main menu item change color when the visitor is anywhere within that category. This gives the same effect as breadcrumbs, but without the extra menu.
If you are considering building an expandable or drop down menu for your own site I would suggest taking lesson from this site. Their links could have used titles, and maybe it could have been coded differently, but in regards to usability I give it two thumbs up. Will I be learning Spanish in Argentina? No.
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Nice site. Considering how terrible my Spanish is, I could certainly do worse then learning the language in a tropical paradise like Buenos Aires, Argentina.
That’s a nice looking site. Considering how relatively weak the US Dollar is still abroad, I found this section on their site about the “crazy exchange rate in Argentina” pretty interesting:
http://www.gicarg.org/ABOUTARGENTINA/ExchangeRate/tabid/138/Default.aspx
At least I can get my money’s worth while learning a foreign language at the same time.
Lets say I have virtually the same menu..
I have a main catagory called “about us” and which if you
click on it comes to an “about us” page or if you hover
over it a drop down menu comes up with other choices:
the blog, privacy policy, news and media page.
My concern is if they hover over the about us bit in the
menu and a submenu immediatly pops up.. they might not think
to click on the about us link, thus never seeing our about us
page. Or I could add an “about company name” to the submenu
which just leads to the same page as the main about us link
which would make it more obvious.
What are you thoughts usability wise? I want to make sure
the about us page and its content is easy to find yet I dont want to confuse more advanced users with why two menu items go to the same page.
Michael, in regards to your concern, the first item in their drop downs are the defaults for the main menu items, so really there are two methods to access the most important page for each main item.
If you are concerned about any confusion you might want to think about making the titles of the first items listed match the default main menu names.
Example:
About Us <- Main menu item
About Us <- Sub menu item, currently titled “Welcome Message”
Contact Us <- Sub menu item
Meet Our Staff <- Sub menu item