Web Designer Blog

Tab menu has the features of space-saving and eye-catching, which is the popular web menu applied to website navigation. Generally, tab menu is 2-level navigation menu, it displays main menu as tabs, and sub-menu will be shown vertically in below line when the mouse is over the main menu. Tab menu usually uses round corner as background, which makes the web menu appealing and pleasing.

How to Create a Tab Menu?

Tab Menu is a standard compliant 2 level tab menu. With Sothink DHTML menu, you can create a tab menu in steps:

1. Create menu includes sub-menu.2. Enter Global > Menu Type in Tasks panel and select the option “Tab menu”. The menu is switch to a menu with 2 levels.

3. Enter Global > General in Tasks panel, choose “Mouse over” as the method to select the item. So you can move you mouse over one of the sub items to select it.

4. Check “Top-Level-Menu” and enter “Menu Item > Border” to set border as 0; check the popup menu and enter “Popup Menu > Border” to set border as 0 and delete the arrow from “Popup Menu > Arrow”.

5. Select all menu items, enter “Menu Item > Background” to pick up the background image from image library.

6. Set “Transparent” for all menu items, popup menu and the whole menu in “Popup Menu > Background” and “Menu Item > Background”.

At present, website designers can complete the various navigation menus by different technologies, like CSS menu, JavaScript Menu, Flash menu, HTML menu and jQuery menu. Then, which is the popular way to create navigation bar? The website guru prefers to design web menu by JS and CSS code; but for majority of us, we’d like to make navigation menu by professional menu creator. Here lists three reasons why choose menu creator:

We will take Sothink DHTML Menu for example to explain advantages about menu creator.

WYSWYG Menu Creator Makes Menu Creation Simple

1. Get a clear menu structure from menu panel; and freely adjust the position for menu item by clicking.
2. Preview JavaScript menu in real time with menu creator.
   
3. Choose menu properties and customize the corresponding menu style in menu creator.

Finish Functional Menus in Easy Way

1. Set menu type as Float to float menu in fixed position on webpage.
2. Edit highlight settings for highlight menu to show where the user is on the web site.
3. Make long menu items scroll and keep their scrolling in a fixed depth.

Quick Start Menu from Rich Resources

1. Start web menu from the various free menu templates.
2. Apply preset menu style to the menu item.
3. Apply resources from image library to design menu in less time.

The above-mentioned features are only in menu creator; download Sothink DHTML Menu to get more features which other technologies are unable to achieve.

Usability is an essential goal of any website, and usable navigation is something every website needs. It determines where users are led and how they interact with the website. Without usable navigation, content becomes all but useless. Menus need to be simple enough for the user to understand, but also contain the elements necessary to guide the user through the website — with some creativity and good design thrown in.
Below we present over 10 excellent navigation menus — we feature CSS-based design solutions, CSS+JavaScript-based menus and Flash-designs. However, they all have something in common: they are user-friendly yet creative and perfectly fit to the style of their respective websites.

• Nopokographics8
  Vertical navigation menus are used very rarely, for the simple reason: they are harder to use. However, some designers risk unusual approaches. Nopoko Graphics uses an arrow and a hover-effect for its vertical navigation menu.

  

• Cosmicsoda10
  This large and colorful menu is very noticeable and uses a slight hover effect to further define the menu items.

  

• Clearleft14
  Clearleft uses a couple of paper pieces for its navigation.

  

• Water’s Edge Media19
  Patricia Abbott uses clothespins for the navigation options.

  

• Jeff Sarmiento24
  Why not try a sloping navigation options once in a while?

  

• Mac Rabbit
  One more example of a large and clean menu. This one uses icons to aid the reader in recognizing each item’s function.

  

• DFW UPA34
  Icons reinforce the menu items on this website and add emphasis to each option.

  

• Duarte Pires36
  This menu is located close to the content, where it is easy to use. It uses large icons, which adds a visual element to the navigation. Also, the menu on other pages uses the same icons in a vertical layout, bringing consistency to the website. The icons may not fit perfectly, but it’s a nice idea.

  

• Eric Johansson42
  Eric Johansson, a designer from Sweden, uses tall vertical blocks and images for his navigation.

  

• Bern45
  I am a big fan of this navigation layout. I like how the menu fits in with the grunge theme. It also uses another jQuery drop-down effect.

  

The article is from smashingmagazine.com.

A website is like a magazine where people search for information. The table of contents of a magazine is like the navigation of a website. Table of contents provides an overview of your magazine, while navigation also shows on what your viewers should expect to see on your website. Both serves as pathways for your viewers on how they can explore your website.

Whenever I think of what is the most important task a web designer could do, I always end up thinking that it should be the creation of good navigation. It must be well-designed in a user-friendly manner that the moment the viewer sees it, they instantly understand how it is used and what is it for. A navigation must also be creatively done, it is one of the elements you can find on a website where you can capture a viewer’s attention.

What’s kind of menus is good for web navigation?

The less click, the better.

Viewers tend to be impatient when searching for information; they want to seek what they are searching very quickly. Make sure that your navigation responds as quickly as possible to your viewers’ instincts.

Horizontal Navigation Menu

Horizontal navigation is the widely used navigation of web designers today. Usually, the navigation bar is placed right under the header.

Good Characteristics:
1. It occupies less space
Horizontal navigation is mostly used by web designers for it occupies less space, because it is placed at the top part of the website. Then, the rest of the spaces you can use for your content.

2. More noticeable
Our eyes first notice elements of the website that are placed on the center, that is why horizontal menus are more noticeable since they are placed on the top and center part of the website.

3. Easier to use
Viewers find horizontal navigation easier to use. Comparing it to vertical navigation, you still have to move your mouse pointer on the left part of the screen (or sometimes right) to click the menus. If the navigation is horizontally placed, you just have to move your pointer upward to click a menu button.

4. Viewers are already used to it
Since it is the mostly used navigation, viewers always expect that all websites have this type of navigation.

Bad Characteristics:

1. Limited space for your menus
When using horizontal navigation, you are limited on the width space of your website and this still depends on the layout of your website.

2. Can only be used if number of menus are already known
Horizontal navigation can only be used if the number of your menus is already fixed, because the size and design depends on the number of menus to be placed.

View Horizontal Navigation Menu Samples for Inspiration:

Generally, most Web developers, especially those that the user experience, know that a bad practice to estimate using the menus because it confusing, annoying and often are dysfunctional. From design point of view, however, the menu is a great feature, and are to help clean animated design. If well structured menus, can be a great navigational tool, but is a useful and attractive design.

Yes, it’s true: navigation dropdown menus easy to use. The recent study declines that large and two-dimensional menus enable to avoid scrolling and precision, explain the options the user with the effective use of typography, icons and tooltips.

These panels appear for a short time and disappear when users mouse over another option or a normal screen.

In this article we take a closer look at the nature of the navigation menu to situations in which they may or may not have to be used to analyze, discuss various implementations, and finally some good and bad examples of menus to see, for example. The article also includes some tips and suggestions to help you to work with menus.

Position to Use Navigation Menus.

You are used to view many trends in the drop-down menus. The most common ones are here:

Arrange the pages section

Most frequently, navigation menus used to draw all the pages in a specific category in an organized element. These are essentially sub-navigation. See the picture below. A drop-down element contains all the different categories for a specific area of the site.

Organize categories in a Blog

You see many blogs which use a menu to organize the categories and labels. Why? Blogs includes a great amount of information supplied, so that the design must maintain as clean as possible to this content. A menu will ultimately helps together links, such as classes, design elements, how to collect the sidebar.

View products on electronic commerce Website

Many menus on e-commerce websites are used for showing products or groups. The menu is a positive feature that can find the clients; it is an ideal way to organize products. The Best Buy Web site, see below.

Show Modules
A drop-down may be the best way to tuck away obstructive menu, which the user can click on to reveal. View the example below, logging in the element is part of the navigation will appear as a drop-down list. It is a good way to achieve this important element of the rule without any negative impact on usability.

In this article I am going to share some interesting uses of JavaScript that would be very much acceptable and useful to the web designers. These examples are not only Uses of JavaScript but HTML and CSS also. So I hope my viewers will gracefully enjoy this article.

Using jQuery for Background Image Animations

 Sliding JavaScript Menu Highlight

Fisheye JavaScript Menu

MenuMatic

Simple Drop-Down Menu

Eyecatchy javasript navigation menu

JavaScript sliding menu

jQuery framework has been a hot topic these few years in web design and development. New tutorials, new techniques and cool effects are being released by developers everyday.As a jQuery lover, I always find myself trying to invent something really cool, useful and able to integrate into design easily. This time, I’ve chosen 5 very useful and helpful navigation menu samples to share with you.

What is one of the aspects of a website that always needed? It is the navigation menu. Navigation menu is a useful part of the website because it leads the user to different part of the website. Interaction to the website is the main use of the navigation menu. More and more great looking and user-friendly navigation menus are being created that gives  life to the websites.

I’ll be featuring 6 great looking and really unusual navigation menus which JavaScript-based menus.

Read on »

Main Navigation Types & Usability
Main navigation, also known as global navigation (if the navigation is always present on each page) is a crucial element for web site or web-based application usability. There are many variations of main navigation systems, however for the vast majority of existing web sites or web-based applications* there are four primary types:

• Horizontal Menu
• Vertical Menu
• Inverted
• Mega Footer

Which main navigation system is used depends on several variables, including;

• Information architecture of the site
• Screen size or typical location of use of the web site
• User needs including any special accessibility issues

The screen size issue is a very important consideration now that more and more users rely on mobile devices to find and access content and functionality.  With mobile screen size being extremely limited vs. typical displays in homes or offices, It is important to consider which type of main navigation will work best for each environment.
The main navigation type chosen will have a direct and significant impact on the usability of a web site, and because of this great care should be taken before deciding on a navigation type. From a usability standpoint, there are multiple benefits and challenges for each primary type of navigation.
Main Navigation– Horizontal Menu
Horizontal menus have links placed across the page, well, horizontally. This has a tendency to work well for Western cultures, in which reading from left to right, top to bottom is the norm. Horizontal menus align with Western users’s expectations for important content being at the top of a page.

First level horizontal menu items Subject 1, Subject 2, Subject 3
Typically horizontal menu bars are located at the top of the page, but there are several notable exceptions to this rule, including the home page of Blogger.com, which has the main navigation at the bottom of the page.

Blogger.com home page horizontal main navigation is located at the bottom of the page.

This article is from usefulusability.com

While waiting our SEO series to come out, I showcased for you pretty huge and comprehensive navigation menu and button tutorial article. All of those tutorials are selected carefully just featuring here, the most high quality ones.

Navigation is very important aspect in every web-design, because it is usually the place where people will click the most as well as notice creative and usable buttons. Really all we need is to get visitor remember our site! To complete and sharpen you need to use menu builder here, actually version doesn’t matter, I am sure everything can be completed in menu builders!

Let’s get started and learn how to create shiny, clean, stylish, glossy or even 3D navigation menus! Hope you will enjoy this article!

Read on »