Comments on: Navandising: Merchandising in Navigation

By: Linda Bustos

Linda Bustos — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 21:45:06 +0000

Hi John,
They remain a popular design option – I wouldn’t say they exploded but I still see them frequently.

By: John Letter

John Letter — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 08:49:30 +0000

I know this blog post is from 2009, but what happened with these menus then? Did they end up actually taking off or they died down?

By: Personalized Easter Baskets For Kids

Personalized Easter Baskets For Kids — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 00:44:42 +0000

@Zabubli, gotta agree with you there. We had a whole phase of everybody using Flash because it was the “cool” thing to do. Many didn’t care about using Flash on 56k modems mind you… of course the broadband evolution (and probably WordPress) saved us from that.

IMHO, these fly out menus can work for certain types of sites & markets. The key is to split test both with and without, that’s the only way one would find out for sure if it does work or not.

By: Zabubli

Zabubli — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 03:27:17 +0000

Well, I guess only testing could reveal the true results, as some others said. The fly out menus do (to an extent) take away from the usability of the menus. It’s kind of like when everybody started using Flash just because it was “cool”, while making huge compromises in user-experience.

On a smaller scale though, there may be some potential in this idea. Also depends on the clientele — it is probably working for the retailers posted in this thread. That is why they are using it.

By: e-commerce miami

e-commerce miami — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 19:32:09 +0000

@ dan: yeah , me too ! I like it

By: Craig Kistler

Craig Kistler — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 18:37:23 +0000

The dropdown on the MooseJaw site was a bit overwhelming and I could see how it would become distracting. American Eagle seemed to be a little more reserved. I’m just noticing that GNC has removed their offer from within the flyout (maybe they were testing).

By: Ryan

Ryan — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 18:25:45 +0000

Great idea from a merchandising perspective but have heard rumors that adding this type of spot produces negative site performance issues. Something to think about.

By: Raquel Hirsch

Raquel Hirsch — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 15:23:27 +0000

IMHO, because it’s a site-wide ‘add-on’ it *must* be tested before rollout!

By: Christian, Baymard Institute

Christian, Baymard Institute — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 12:49:16 +0000

@dan, yes some split test results on this would be great. While its easy to see some of the benefits from this, there sure are drawbacks as well, like:
- the dropdown becomes way more visually intemidating for the user.
- it steals a lot of focus from the links inside the dropdown, making it harder to figure out where you actually want to go.

The question is of couse does the benefits outweight this?

By: dan barker

dan barker — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 11:15:00 +0000

I love this idea &, because it’s a site-wide ‘add-on’, it’s the kind of thing that’s ripe for an A/B test. Would love to see the effect it has.