GOOGLE NAVIGATION MENU
Google has updated it’s navigation menu from what was the fixed horizontal bar to what’s now a dropdown menu when hovering over the Google logo. This was most likely done for usability reasons, seeing as the average person focuses on left elements first which means it will now be a lot easier to get to common Google section. In terms of design, I would have preferred the menu to be completely white, I’m not sold on the heavy use of dark grey I think it’s detracting and at least should be toned down to a lighter grey.
Somehow, the idea that ‘users don’t scroll’ didn’t manage to die with Facebook and Twitter’s newsfeeds.
It’s never been a lack of ability of users to scroll, it’s been your lack of ability to get them to scroll. As Tufte likes to say, that’s ‘a failure of design’.
Here’s VW with a great example of keeping a user engaged in your story as they scroll vertically. It’s similar in essence to Nike’s site I posted about back in January. My pal, Mr. Vogler, also suggested this.
This is what I would have liked Facebook do for Timeline. Use scrolling a bit more dynamically to make the UX more interesting by fading-in content as you scroll and use a horizontal scrollbar to navigate different points on the timeline. This is something I’m currently working on conceptualising.
Why In-Page Navigation Links Matter More Than Menus
Menus are handy and your site should have one, but they can’t engage users on a level that in-page navigation links can. This is because menus don’t come with content. They’re ambiguous labels that have little meaning to users who visit your site for the first time. First-time visitors aren’t looking at your menus to navigate. They’re looking at your content to navigate, which is why you should focus more of your energy on designing your landing pages than your menus. The landing page is where the user’s journey begins. It’s the starting page for an area of your site that includes attractive headlines, images and text to entice users to click-through to learn more.
