A question has been bothering me about horizontal drop down navigation and I’m not sure what the current trend is.
On a navigation bar - say that a li at the top level (parent) is desserts and there are 3 services (children) below it… cake, ice cream and cookies.
Should there be a clickable link for desserts with text and a summary or should it just act like a placeholder or chapter title to roll over to display the 3 drop down items?
What is your experience?
Thanks!
Should there be a clickable link for desserts with text and a summary or should it just act like a placeholder or chapter title to roll over to display the 3 drop down items?
Desserts should be clickable, and should take people somewhere that has links to the submenu options.
The reason for this is redundancy: some users will never get your dropdown to drop down for whatever reason.
Maybe they’re using IE6 with JS off (still some corporate customers). Maybe they’re using a mobile touch device who doesn’t have :hover. Maybe you didn’t include keyboard navigation. Maybe you did (using :focus) but the user still has IE7 (who does not read :focus styles from CSS). Maybe they are using a mouse but have mobility problems and navigating a dropdown is too difficult.
Meanwhile, users who easily use a mouse on dropdowns don’t tend to click on that top-level item because they do expect to see a dropdown.
Thanks for the feedback I really appreciate it. All great tips and ideas, thank you!