Common Navigation Patterns

Mega menus are expandable menus that display many choices in a two-dimensional dropdown layout, ideal for sites with extensive options.

Their characteristics include:

• Two-dimensional panels divided into groups of navigation options
• Navigation choices structured through layout, typography, and sometimes icons
• Everything visible at once — no scrolling required
• Vertical or horizontal forms when activated from top navigation bars; from left-hand navigation, they might appear as mega fly-outs
• Menu options revealed on hover, click, or tap

Benefits of mega menus include:

• Comprehensive navigation: They show many options at once, making navigation efficient.
• Organized layout: Their clear structure helps users quickly find what they need.
• Enhanced user experience: They reduce the number of clicks needed to find information, improving overall efficiency.

A mega menu should be triggered only when users are genuinely interested in the navigation categories and need more information. Here are some best practices for timing mega menus on hover:

• Delay activation: The mouse should remain stationary for 0.5 seconds before displaying the mega menu. This prevents accidental activation and screen flicker when users move the mouse.
• Quick display: If the pointer is still hovering over a navbar item after 0.5 seconds, display the mega menu within 0.1 seconds.
• Sustained visibility: Keep the mega menu visible until the pointer has been outside both the navbar item and the dropdown for 0.5 seconds.
• Smart detection: The best implementations can detect when users are moving the pointer from the navbar item to a destination within the dropdown. If the pointer temporarily leaves the active area while moving diagonally, the dropdown should remain visible.

Here are the key grouping guidelines for mega menus:

• Chunk related options: Group similar items together based on user insights, such as findings from a card sorting study.
• Maintain medium granularity: Avoid both overly large groups that overwhelm users and excessively small groups that clutter the menu. For example, instead of having a single group for all "Electronics" or splitting it into too many subcategories, find a balance like "Mobile Devices," "Computers," and "Accessories."
• Use concise, descriptive labels: For example, use "Home Decor" instead of "Items to Decorate Your Home."
• Order groups logically: Arrange groups in a meaningful order, either by workflow or importance.
• Differentiate labels clearly: Avoid similar-sounding labels that could confuse users. For instance, instead of "Beginner Courses" and "Basic Courses," use "Beginner Courses" and "Introductory Courses."^[1]

A hamburger menu is a button icon featuring three parallel horizontal lines, resembling a hamburger. It's commonly used on websites and applications, especially in mobile environments, to save screen space and declutter interfaces.

When to use hamburger menus:

• Hiding secondary features: If your website or app's core elements are already visible, and you have secondary options that aren't crucial to user goals, you can hide these behind a hamburger menu.
• Saving screen real estate: Even if there is enough space to display secondary features, you might not want to clutter the screen. A cleaner interface reduces cognitive load on users.

When not to use hamburger menus:

• Hiding core features: Avoid using hamburger menus for options or settings that are central to the user experience. Important features should be directly accessible, not hidden. For example, on an e-commerce site, categories like "Shop" and "Cart" should be visible rather than tucked away in a menu.
• Interaction-heavy websites: If your site already requires multiple interactions, adding a hamburger menu can increase the interaction cost.^[2]

A fat footer is a large, content-rich footer at the bottom of a webpage. Unlike the minimal footers of the past, which often only included a copyright notice and a link to the site designer, fat footers are packed with various types of content. They can include sections like "About," "Contact," and "Subscribe," links to other articles, a sitemap, a "Back to Top" link, categories lists, recent comments, social media links, and global navigation.

When to use fat footers:

• Enhancing user-friendliness: Fat footers can make a website more user-friendly by suggesting additional content at the end of a page.
• Boosting SEO: Including extra content in a fat footer can help with search engine optimization (SEO) by adding more keywords to the page. Although the impact is modest due to the low ranking of footer content in search algorithms, it can still contribute positively.
• Showcasing creativity: Fat footers offer an opportunity to express creativity. For example, you can include a small illustration highlighting the brand. This adds a personal touch and enhances brand identity.

Keep in mind that adding more content to the footer can increase the page's load time, which may cause visitors to leave if it takes too long. Although fat footers offer value, optimizing them is crucial. Modern techniques like lazy loading can help minimize the impact on performance.

Dropdown menus are UI controls that present a list of options from which users can select one at a time. Once a selection is made, the menu closes. There are two types: command menus, which trigger an action based on the selection, and navigation menus, which direct users to a new location.

Here are some best practices for dropdown menus:

• Gray out unavailable options: Keep all options visible, even if some are unavailable. Gray out these options instead of removing them. For extra user experience points, consider adding a tooltip that appears when users hover over a grayed-out option, explaining why it’s disabled and how to enable it.
• Avoid overloading with options: Resist the urge to include too many items in a dropdown menu. If you have many options, consider alternative presentations like mega menus.
• Keep global navigation out of dropdowns on desktop: Top-level navigation categories should be easily accessible. Burying them in dropdown menus can hinder user success.
• Support keyboard input: Ensure dropdown menus support keyboard navigation in addition to mouse input. This improves accessibility and user experience.^[3]

A top navigation bar is a global navigation feature that includes broad category titles, allowing users to navigate directly to associated content. These categories, such as "About," "Services," or "Contact," are always visible at the top of the page, providing a consistent and efficient means for users to switch between the main sections of a site.

Here’s why they're valuable:

• User familiarity: Most users, regardless of their experience level, are familiar with top navigation bars. This familiarity means users can navigate through the site without needing instructions or attention-grabbing visuals.
• Efficiency: Top navigation bars allow quick access to the most important sections of a site.
• Consistency: The top navigation bar is always in the same position, ensuring users can easily move from one section to another without needing to backtrack.
• Space-saving: Top navigation bars can accommodate up to 12 categories without cluttering the interface. This makes them ideal for websites with stable, well-defined sections that can be represented with short labels.

A logo is a crucial navigation component on websites. It communicates which site users are on and facilitates easy navigation. The logo should always be clickable, linking directly to the homepage. This feature allows users to quickly return to the starting point, providing a fresh start if they get disoriented or want to switch tasks.

Commonly, logos are found in the top left corner. This placement is highly familiar to users, and straying from this pattern can impair the user experience. For example, right-aligned logos have been shown to hurt brand recall. According to the study, users are 6 times more likely to fail to navigate to the homepage in a single click when the logo is centered versus left-aligned.^[4]

When designing navigation menus, ensure that links are large enough to be easily tapped or clicked. Small, closely spaced links can frustrate users, particularly on mobile devices, and complicate navigation on larger screens. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) recommend touch targets be at least 44x44px to facilitate easy tapping.^[5]

Additionally, it's crucial to use a font size that enhances readability and accessibility, with a minimum of 16px for body text often suggested for clear visibility.

When designing navigation menus, especially those with long lists, making links visually distinct can significantly enhance user experience. This visual differentiation helps users scan through options efficiently and should not be used merely for decoration. Introducing visual elements like icons next to menu items can guide users quickly. For instance, adding a shopping cart icon next to the "Checkout" link in an e-commerce site menu can instantly communicate its function and improve findability.

However, it's crucial to balance these visual cues with clear text labels. While visual elements can guide and inform, they should support rather than replace text, ensuring accessibility and usability for all users, including those who rely on assistive technologies.^[6]

Using sticky menus on long pages can greatly enhance navigation efficiency and user experience. Sticky menus remain fixed at the top of the viewport as users scroll down, eliminating the need for excessive scrolling to return to the main navigation. This feature is particularly beneficial on mobile devices, where screen real estate is limited.

However, it's important to ensure that sticky menus do not obscure content or overwhelm the user interface. They should be designed to be minimally invasive while still providing quick access to key site navigation.

When designing menus, particularly mega menus for large screens, it’s important to strike a balance between ensuring visibility and not dominating the screen. Menus should help improve the user experience by clearly displaying navigation options without obscuring the main content. If a menu is too large, it can cover up underlying content, causing confusion or misleading users into thinking they’ve navigated to a different page.

This principle holds less on mobile devices, where screen real estate is limited, and full-screen menus are often necessary to provide adequate touch targets. However, on desktops, menus that cover the full screen can disrupt the user experience by temporarily hiding the content users are interacting with.

When optimizing navigation, it's crucial to place frequently used commands within easy reach to enhance usability. According to Fitts’s Law, which states that the time to acquire a target is related to the distance and size of the target, positioning commonly used options conveniently is essential. For example, in a web messenger's dropdown menu for muting notifications, “30 mins” should be at the top as the most commonly selected duration, followed by “1 hour” and “2 hours,” with an option to set a custom period at the end. This setup minimizes navigation distance, making these essential functions quickly accessible and improving the user experience across devices.

Using a caret or arrow icon to indicate submenus is an essential navigation practice. This small but effective visual cue clearly signals to users that more options are available under a specific menu item. For example, in an educational app, a downward-facing arrow next to the item “Courses” signals that users can explore further into detailed categories or specific course offerings within that section.

This helps prevent confusion and improves user interaction by making the structure of the app more intuitive. Users can easily see which items lead to further content and which are direct links, enhancing their overall navigation experience.

Activating submenus on click rather than on hover often provides a more user-friendly experience. Hover can be problematic, especially since it isn't accessible on touchscreens and can be challenging for keyboard-only users. Providing a click option ensures that everyone can access the menu content reliably.

Click activation also reduces the frustration of accidentally triggering menus, a common issue with hover where menus can appear and disappear too quickly if the mouse passes over them inadvertently. This click method creates a consistent interaction across various devices, from desktops with mice to touch-only smartphones and tablets, ensuring all users have the same functional access.