Use of CSS and Drop-Down Menus in Web Design

Drake Moore      – Raleigh, NC
123Triad: Web Design & SEO Company

Use of CSS and Drop-Down Menus in Web Design

In the late 90’s, drop down menus started appearing all over the internet. As CSS slowly became accepted across the internet, many designers began including drop down menus in their site design. However, a poorly designed drop down menu goes against the basic rules of functionality in site design. They offer many positives, but can lead down the dangerous road to a sloppy site.

Drop down menus give the designer the ability to hide many cluttering links within a drop down. However, this “sweep it under the rug” style can lead to frustration for many users. There is always the chance that a menu which extends two or three levels can suddenly disappear if the user moves the mouse out of the target area. This can mean starting the navigation process all over again. Drop down menus can also extend over other links on the site and a visitor can easily click the wrong link. Ease of navigation is the number one concern all website designers must address and drop down menus can make navigation frustrating.

CSS integration across the internet also means that websites can be designed with many similarities to desktop applications, which use drop down menus. However, these menus were never designed for navigation purposes. Desktop drop down menus, those accessed when right-clicking an application for example, are designed purely as a method to do something, not get somewhere. Many drop down menus that do not take navigation into proper consideration also offer very little information as to where the visitor is or how to get back. There is usually no way to follow a trail of links or back out of a page easily.

Drop down menus also offer limited potential. They can only expand to a certain depth before they become unreasonable. While links to separate pages allows the designer to expand limitlessly, drop downs hinder further pages from being linked. While they may look nice on a site that is just starting out, it can impair further expanding the site later on.

For these reasons, many highly popular sites do not use drop down menus. If ease of navigation and visitor consideration are the highest priority, drop down menus may interfere with designing a user-friendly site. While they may have useful aspects, most drop down menus are nothing more than a source of frustration for visitors.

123Triad webdesign offers affordable custom website design. Our full service website design company only hires certified website designers. Please contact us today on 1-800-720-0816 for your next web site design project.

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