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UserTesting's Navigation Treasure Trove: Menu Usability Resources

Aug 20, 2015

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Page 2: UserTesting's Navigation Treasure Trove: Menu Usability Resources

Navigation can make or break the user experience on a website. If users can’t find what they’re looking for—or if they can’t use the menu—they’re likely to get frustrated and give up on the site.

Introduction

Page 3: UserTesting's Navigation Treasure Trove: Menu Usability Resources

Check out the following video example of a user struggling with an unwieldy navigation experience...

Introduction

Page 4: UserTesting's Navigation Treasure Trove: Menu Usability Resources

Introduction

Frustrating site navigation means you’re missing out on an opportunity to delight your customers.

Delighted customers means:

Multiple Purchases Positive Reviews Brand Advocacy

Page 5: UserTesting's Navigation Treasure Trove: Menu Usability Resources

Introduction

If you’re interested in improving your navigation usability, here are 37 resources to help you create a great experience for your users.

Sections:• General Menu Usability• Mobile Menu Usability• Testing & Analytics• Books• Courses & Presentations• Design Inspiration• Code and Tutorials

Page 6: UserTesting's Navigation Treasure Trove: Menu Usability Resources

General Menu Usability

Page 7: UserTesting's Navigation Treasure Trove: Menu Usability Resources

Five Expert Tips for Improving Your Navigation Menu

General Menu Usability

This article gives a great overview of some common-sense (but often under used) guidelines for menu design. Learn what experts say about menu placement, use of visual information, and more.

Read More »

Page 8: UserTesting's Navigation Treasure Trove: Menu Usability Resources

Why Hover Menus Do Users More Harm than Good

General Menu Usability

Many well-intentioned websites use drop-down menus that expand when the user hovers over them. This article explains why this tends to cause frustration and confusion.

Read More »

Page 9: UserTesting's Navigation Treasure Trove: Menu Usability Resources

Designing Drop-Down Menus: Examples and Best Practices

General Menu Usability

Drop-down menus get a lot of criticism for hindering usability, but sometimes they’re the best option. These tips will show you how to use drop-down menus for good, not evil.

Read More »

Page 10: UserTesting's Navigation Treasure Trove: Menu Usability Resources

General Menu Usability

Sticky Menus Are Quicker to Navigate

General Menu Usability

“Sticky” or fixed navigation menus can make a huge difference in a website’s usability. This post shows the pros and cons of switching to a sticky menu, along with some surprising statistics.

Read More »

Page 11: UserTesting's Navigation Treasure Trove: Menu Usability Resources

Hold the Hamburger

General Menu Usability

More and more websites are using the “hamburger” (the ubiquitous three-line symbol for a menu) to save space on the screen, but hiding the navigation options isn’t always the best idea — especially for a desktop site.Read More »

Page 12: UserTesting's Navigation Treasure Trove: Menu Usability Resources

Mega-Menus Gone Wrong

General Menu Usability

Large drop-down menus can easily fall into the trap of giving the user too many options or presenting the options in a confusing way. This article shows you what not to do if you’re using a drop-down menu.

Read More »

Page 13: UserTesting's Navigation Treasure Trove: Menu Usability Resources

UX Flows: Navigation

General Menu Usability

This post discusses navigation from a UX designer’s perspective and shows some creative alternatives to the traditional drop-down menu.

Read More »

Page 14: UserTesting's Navigation Treasure Trove: Menu Usability Resources

Top Navigation vs. Left Navigation: Which Works Better?

General Menu Usability

Not sure of the best location for your nav bar? Learn about scanning, visibility, and priority to decide which option is best for your site.

Read More »

Page 15: UserTesting's Navigation Treasure Trove: Menu Usability Resources

Designing a Winning Navigation Menu: Ideas and Inspirations

General Menu Usability

Browse through this collection of best practices, resources, and examples to get inspired to create a highly usable menu.

Read More »

Page 16: UserTesting's Navigation Treasure Trove: Menu Usability Resources

What Really Matters in Navigation Bar Usability

General Menu Usability

Take a look at the results from these real-life nav menu A/B tests. You might be surprised at what a difference a small change in copy or functionality can make.

Read More »

Page 17: UserTesting's Navigation Treasure Trove: Menu Usability Resources

Mobile Menu Usability

Page 18: UserTesting's Navigation Treasure Trove: Menu Usability Resources

Best Practices for Navigation on the Mobile Web

Mobile Menu Usability

With mobile web traffic continuing to rise, creating a usable mobile experience is more important than ever. This article gives some basic guidelines on building menus for the small screen.

Read More »

Page 19: UserTesting's Navigation Treasure Trove: Menu Usability Resources

Responsive Design Menus: Problems and Proposals

Mobile Menu Usability

Responsive design is a popular way to make a website work on multiple devices, but creating an effective menu within your responsive site can be a big challenge. Here are some ideas for building a responsive menu that works.

Read More »

Page 20: UserTesting's Navigation Treasure Trove: Menu Usability Resources

11 Ways to Improve the Navigation on Your Mobile Site

Mobile Menu Usability

For e-commerce sites, a bad mobile experience equals a loss of sales. From one-click checkout to the 44×44 rule for links and buttons, this is a list of things retailers can do right now to make their mobile navigation more usable.Read More »

Page 21: UserTesting's Navigation Treasure Trove: Menu Usability Resources

Mobile Navigation Menus and Great User Experience

Mobile Menu Usability

This article shows how to make good use of the limited space on a mobile screen without confusing users. It also includes some user-friendly alternatives to the “hamburger” navigation symbol.

Read More »

Page 22: UserTesting's Navigation Treasure Trove: Menu Usability Resources

Mobile Menu A/B Tested: Hamburger Not the Best Choice?

Mobile Menu Usability

What does mobile menu usability have to do with quantum physics? And is it better to use an icon or a word to label the menu? Find out in this post.

Read More »

Page 23: UserTesting's Navigation Treasure Trove: Menu Usability Resources

Responsive Menus: Enhancing Navigation on Mobile Websites

Mobile Menu Usability

There’s more to mobile design than layout and speed. This article takes a deep dive into improving navigation — code included!

Read More »

Page 24: UserTesting's Navigation Treasure Trove: Menu Usability Resources

Designing Your Menus for Optimal Usability

Mobile Menu Usability

If you’re looking to improve the menu on your app, you’ve come to the right place. This post gives pointers on designing menus for mobile game apps.

Read More »

Page 25: UserTesting's Navigation Treasure Trove: Menu Usability Resources

UX Designers: Side Drawer Navigation Could Be Costing You Half Your User Engagement

Mobile Menu Usability

The co-founder of TV app Zeebox shares the surprising result of what happened when his app switched from a top navigation to a hidden side drawer alternative.

Read More »

Page 26: UserTesting's Navigation Treasure Trove: Menu Usability Resources

Testing and Analytics

Page 27: UserTesting's Navigation Treasure Trove: Menu Usability Resources

Tree Testing for Effective Navigation

Testing and Analytics

Tree testing is a great way to test your site structure. This article explains tree testing, using a company intranet as an example.

Read More »

Page 28: UserTesting's Navigation Treasure Trove: Menu Usability Resources

Using Card Sorting to Test Information Architecture

Card sorting allows you to find out how users would naturally expect a site to be organized. Learn when, why, and how to use this method of testing.

Testing and Analytics

Read More »

Page 29: UserTesting's Navigation Treasure Trove: Menu Usability Resources

Optimal Workshop

Optimal Workshop offers tools for tree testing and card sorting. There are even free plans for folks who want to do smaller studies.

Testing and Analytics

Read More »

Page 30: UserTesting's Navigation Treasure Trove: Menu Usability Resources

Books

Page 31: UserTesting's Navigation Treasure Trove: Menu Usability Resources

Designing Web Navigationby James Kalbach

Books

This widely-respected bestseller discusses design principles, development techniques, and real examples for creating a usable navigation experience.

Read More »

Page 32: UserTesting's Navigation Treasure Trove: Menu Usability Resources

Card Sortingby Donna Spencer

Books

This book takes an in-depth look at how to run a card sorting test, from planning the study to analyzing the results.

Read More »

Page 33: UserTesting's Navigation Treasure Trove: Menu Usability Resources

Courses and Presentations

Page 34: UserTesting's Navigation Treasure Trove: Menu Usability Resources

Organizing Mobile Web Experiences

Courses and Presentations

Popular presenter Luke W. shows you realistic solutions for organizing your site’s navigation on a mobile screen.

Read More »

Page 35: UserTesting's Navigation Treasure Trove: Menu Usability Resources

Website Navigation – How to Get It Right for Customers

Courses and Presentations

Check out the 9 tips in this quick presentation that you should keep in mind when designing your navigation experience.

Read More »

Page 36: UserTesting's Navigation Treasure Trove: Menu Usability Resources

Create Navigation Menus with jQuery

Courses and Presentations

This intermediate-level online video course will get you up to speed with building menus using jQuery.

Read More »

Page 37: UserTesting's Navigation Treasure Trove: Menu Usability Resources

Design Inspiration

Page 38: UserTesting's Navigation Treasure Trove: Menu Usability Resources

50 Beautiful and User- Friendly Navigation Menus

Design Inspiration

From super-simple to highly artistic, these menus have one thing in common: they’re very easy to understand and use.

Read More »

Page 39: UserTesting's Navigation Treasure Trove: Menu Usability Resources

20+ Responsive Mobile Navigation Inspirations

Design Inspiration

These responsive mobile sites are shining examples of what you can do with a navigation menu on the small screen.

Read More »

Page 40: UserTesting's Navigation Treasure Trove: Menu Usability Resources

45 User Friendly Navigation Menu Examples

Design Inspiration

These websites prove that you don’t have to sacrifice creativity to make a menu user-friendly.

Read More »

Page 41: UserTesting's Navigation Treasure Trove: Menu Usability Resources

31 Super Unique and Functional Website Navigation Menus

Design Inspiration

The navigation menu can play an important role in establishing a website’s character, as these examples do.

Read More »

Page 42: UserTesting's Navigation Treasure Trove: Menu Usability Resources

10 Examples of Beautiful Vertical Navigation to Inspire You

Design Inspiration

Design fans will appreciate the aesthetic appeal of these vertical nav menus.

Read More »

Page 43: UserTesting's Navigation Treasure Trove: Menu Usability Resources

Code & Tutorials

Page 44: UserTesting's Navigation Treasure Trove: Menu Usability Resources

Navbar Template for Bootstrap

Code & Tutorials

The Navbar component in the Bootstrap framework gives you options for static and fixed (sticky) navigation bars.

Read More »

Page 45: UserTesting's Navigation Treasure Trove: Menu Usability Resources

CSS Navigation Bar

Code & Tutorials

Learn how to build simple navigation bars using CSS in this beginner demo.

Read More »

Page 46: UserTesting's Navigation Treasure Trove: Menu Usability Resources

Creating a Floating Navigation Menu

Code & Tutorials

Like the idea of using a sticky menu on your site? This tutorial will walk you through the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript you need to get started.

Read More »

Page 47: UserTesting's Navigation Treasure Trove: Menu Usability Resources

Menu-Aim jQuery Plugin

Code & Tutorials

This plugin makes hover dropdown menus more usable by allowing the user to move the cursor to a submenu without accidentally collapsing it.

Read More »

Page 48: UserTesting's Navigation Treasure Trove: Menu Usability Resources

38 Free Open Source CSS Dropdown Navigation Menus

Code & Tutorials

Want to copy and paste some CSS code rather than building your menu from scratch? Here are 38 basic menus that you can customize to suit your site.

Read More »

Page 49: UserTesting's Navigation Treasure Trove: Menu Usability Resources

100 Great CSS Menu Tutorials

Code & Tutorials

Follow along with any of these 100 tutorials that will teach you how to create beautiful CSS menus.

Read More »