Paul Krug’s “Don’t Make Me Think” is a classic guide to designing easy-to-use websites. In the book he makes a pretty compelling case for using tabs instead of dropdowns. His prime example is Amazon.com who lead the way in successfully using tabs.
Therefore, I got a big surprise today when I saw that even they’re are using dropdowns and with a really interesting twist …. dropdown menus with boxes instead of an organized list of links.
AmazonEach Amazon box has a combination of links, images and search boxes. They appear to be regularly updated including one that is just for today’s deals.
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Keystone RVThis is another fascinating example of dropdown boxes. Keystone revamped their RV website recently. The new menu boxes allow people to search visually rather than by text and also creates very tidy effect, particular with hover boxes inside the menu!
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Menus like this would be relatively easy to implement in Joomla, perhaps with module position inside the dropdowns.
I’d love to see clickthrough data on these new kinds of menu. I wonder if statistics show that people prefer them and are more likely to use them compared to traditional dropdowns …. ?
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