Without them you cant navigate (duh) however...

1) What are the important elements of a good menu ?

and

2) What can make a menu a nightmare?


I think an important element of a good menu is that its available in full on evey page of a site

and a bad menu , in my opinion, is one that keeps "moving" all the time. Ie too much animation, or on one page its on the left and the next page across the top.


Anyhow, what do you think...

look forward to the input. :)

Cheers

John

1) What are the important elements of a good menu ?
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These are simply my own humble opinions :)

1) What are the important elements of a good menu ?

This is really difficult to answer since it really depends on the website purpose and audience. However I think most people would agree that most menus should be clear and understandable to read. Easy to find. Organised and of course....actually working (dead links grrrr)
Personally I like menus with the least amount of sub-menus as possible too.

2) What can make a menu a nightmare?

Menus that move down the page as you scroll annoys the buggery outta me....sorry to those that like them...
As John mentioned....menus that jump around the page can be frustrating....or worse still...having a menu along the bottom of your page (only a problem when your page requires scrolling)

More of a pet peeve but I'm surprised how many of these I've come across lately.....I click on a link, it opens with a preloading warning..... waiting waiting waiting....then it comes up with "Under Constructrion'....very annoying.

nightmare :


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just my
:twocents:

I agree mostly with all said above. In addition I don't like:
1. Rollover sounds (except on specialist sites). A very soft click is OK.
2. Having to hunt for a menu (again except on specialist sites, like some art sites, etc.)
3. Having to close a window before being able to click another menu item.
4. Excessive animation (ESPECIALLY if coupled with sounds).
5. Waiting longer than 20 seconds (absolute max) for a menu to appear.

i fiind the best kind of menu to be a interactive one, one where there may be actions on the rollover....like a glow behind or a sound(within reason) becouse it gives a real feeling of interactivity....i also as dartagnan said hate the way some dead links make u wait to tell you they're under contruction, one of my favorite menu's seen on SF so far was the one on www.jamessidney.com(i dontknow if im allowed to post links here, sorry to admin and moserators if i aint) becouse it was interactive but also looked very sophisticated and was easy to navigate,

worst things in a menu,
probably use of to many effects ona button where on rollover the buttons text scatters accross the screen,
loud sounds on rollover or click,
it may sound wierd but one of the more annoying factors of menu's for me are the size i cannt stand a large menu, where the buttons hit you in the face and are like font 50.....

thats about it...
cerb

What makes a good menu?

1) Consistency - Always in the same location.
2) Simplicity - Easy to understand.
3) Legibility - Easy to read.


[Edited on 15-9-2002 by LisaA : definitions added]

consistency definatly (partly cos i dont know what the other word means....lol) but i do know what consistency means and in my opinion as i said above i belive that to be usefull

:cool:

what makes a good menu?

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