[Web4lib] Usability of "fly-out" navigation menus

[Nick Baker]

We just completed a redesign of our library site 
(http://www.williams.edu/library/) using CSS-based dropdown menus for 
persistent navigation and a new layout for the homepage.  A striking 
result of our usability studies was that students chose the menus over 
identical links within the homepage by a factor of 5 to 1.  Based on 
this and the rest of my experience, I would say that the dropdown menu 
has arrived in website design.  People understand the menu concept and 
know what to do when they see one.  And CSS has progressed to the point 
where menus don't pose an accessibility hurdle, so long as you give 
people with screen readers a link to skip the menu.

-Nick

Nick Baker
Reference and Web Services Librarian
Williams College Libraries

Thomale, J wrote:

>Hello all,
>
>I'm trying to gather information about the usability of "fly-out"
>(pop-out) navigation menus--ones in which links are organized vertically
>and a mouseover reveals submenus. I've spent some time searching for
>hard usability statistics on these types of menus, and--in between all
>of the opinions and passionate arguments for or against--I've found a
>lot of conflicting information. I thought I'd pose this question to the
>list and see if anybody could offer any insight or further resources
>(preferably recent ones).
>
>I've found some information from a few years ago (2000-2001) criticizing
>more the shoddy implementation of the menus than the concept itself. In
>fact, I remember hating them when I first saw them popping up (ha...pun
>not intended): they used DHTML that relied completely on Javascript, and
>they required some pretty difficult mouse movement to use. But now there
>are techniques for creating almost-pure CSS versions (with only an .htc
>behavior file required for IE compatibility) that are accessible and
>seemingly easier to use.
>
>I have found a couple of more recent studies that actually do address
>the concept and not the implementation, but their results conflict.
>
>The first one:
>
>http://www.eastonmass.net/tullis/WebsiteNavigation/WebsiteNavigationPape
>r.htm
>
>was presented at a conference a year ago, and compared six different
>styles of navigation. It found that the fly-out menus fared the worst
>and an old-school Yahoo-style index listing fared the best. Drop-down
>menus (which drop down from a horizontal menu bar) were second place and
>fared almost as well as the Yahoo-style index.
>
>Another one:
>
>http://psychology.wichita.edu/surl/usabilitynews/51/menu.htm
>
>was conducted in 2003 and also found that the Yahoo-style index page is
>easiest to use. However, this one determined that the fly-out menus were
>only slightly more difficult than the index page and the horizontal
>drop-down menus were significantly more difficult and confusing.
>
>This article from 2001 that I see referenced often:
>
>http://www.uie.com/articles/users_decide_first/
>
>suggests that users don't bother taking the time to mouseover menu items
>before they make their choice about what to click on, and so fly-out
>menus break with their expectations and end up slowing them down.
>
>Finally, this article, which is based on usability data collected in
>2000:
>
>http://www.snyderconsulting.net/article_7tricks.htm
>
>states that 5 out of 17 users had difficulty with this type of menu.
>
>I haven't found a thing that really praises this type of navigation, but
>I see it used so often these days that I wonder if it's become a
>convention. I was hoping that somebody on the list might have some more
>(or more conclusive/authoritative/recent) data on this issue.
>
>To muddy the waters even further--in the aforementioned studies, on
>subjective measures (i.e., questions asking users which style of
>navigation they preferred), users rated the pop-out/drop-down menus
>either higher than or, at worst, as high as the more conventional
>navigation styles--despite that the users *performed* better with the
>conventional navigation. This raises an interesting question (to me):
>what is considered more usable--the thing that users think they prefer
>(because it looks cool, is fun to use, or whatever), or the thing that
>is actually easier to use? Is perception of usability equivalent to
>ease-of-use? Or does it depend on the circumstance (an information-rich
>public service web site vs. a marketing-driven or artsy-fartsy web
>site)? 
>
>I suppose that's just a particular incarnation of "give them what they
>want" vs. "give them what they need."
>
>Anyway, I'm babbling now. Thanks for any help you can provide.
>
>Jason
>
>Jason Thomale
>Metadata Librarian
>Texas Tech University Libraries
>_______________________________________________
>Web4lib mailing list
>Web4lib at webjunction.org
>http://lists.webjunction.org/web4lib/
>  
>