Flyout or collapsible navigation?
30 Dec 2009 - 3:30am
5 replies
1217 reads
Sakshi
2009
We are redesigning navigation for an enterprise web application. We have
decided to have left-hand navigation as opposed to top navigation as the
former is used more commonly in enterprise applications....any
thoughts/opinions/suggestions? Also, we have 6 first-level menu items and
two of these menu items have sub-menu items. Any suggestions on whether
having a flyout or a collapsible navigation for the second-level is better?
Any good examples of the same...?
--
Thanks,
Sakshi Gupta
UX Designer
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2nd level should be activated on-click, and 3rd-6th levels activated
on-hover.
I would avoid anything flying out on the 2nd level (assuming you mean
hover effect opens the menu) b/c the user has not shown intent on
opening the navigation. However, after the click on the menu item,
the intent to use navigation has been shown, and hover-flyout can
safely be used in increase speed.
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Posted from the new ixda.org
http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=48128
It sounds like you're considering flyout navigation from a vertical
list, which can be difficult for users to select, since it's easy to
mouse off the active area. For that reason, I'd lean toward
collapsible navigation, also known as tree navigation. That's
assuming it suits your architecture.
James Kalbach has some good material on these issues in chapter 3 of
his book, "Designing Web Navigation."
Regards,
Jeff
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Posted from the new ixda.org
http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=48128
Generally users don't prefer fly outs and this is something i found
out after interviewing a lot of users recently. But here is an
example that may be of some help to you:
http://www.sony.com/index.php
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Posted from the new ixda.org
http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=48128
Thanks Weixi. Jeff and Nancy for your replies. We were leaning towards
going with collapsible/tree type navigation over flyouts for the
reasons that you all stated. Your replies did confirm our direction.
Thanks again!
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Posted from the new ixda.org
http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=48128
Important thing to remember: Forcing items into a heading they don't
fit under is worse then having no headings at all. Also, items can be
in more than one heading, really. If you have too many items to do
that, well, perhaps you have too many items? Maybe your app should be
broken into a suite of apps.
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Posted from the new ixda.org
http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=48128