Vertical Vs. Horizontal Menus

Posted by Edwin Lynch on March 29, 2008 in Technical Tips, website

Which is best?

While horizontal menus may look neat, you are limited to how many items you can have due to page width. These days that’s usually 960px. You can use sub-menu pop-ups beneath main menu items, but strictly speaking – this means that you have hidden options for the user. You’ll get funny looks from expensive usability experts like Jakob Neilsen, but sometimes it’s the best way and after all, your client has final say.

Sidebar or vertical navigation menus (like those to the left on this site) allow you to have many menu items. Adding pages to a site with a vertical menu structure is a breeze. Something to consider when future-proofing your site. You simply add another list element or graphic in the sidebar, pushing all other buttons down the page. There’s plenty of space vertically – but it may mean that some menu choices disappear below the fold (above the fold refers to the website stuff that appears on the site without using the scroll-bar). It could also mean that there are too many options for your user. I like to giuve a user no more than 6 top-menu choices. The user can dig down through the sub-navigation structure to find more information if they really need it.

Horizontal navigation menus always appears above the fold.

In a world where the average site visit is 3 seconds, it’s good to get your message across as quickly as you can. You don’t want juicy content linked low down on your front page. It’s mice to see all the (main) links at a glance so that you attract relevant people to your site while not frustrating those who didn’t want the information.

People don’t like too much choice. Just checkout the sudden plethora of 100g tuna variety tins on a supermarket shelf. Mango salsa, red curry, spicy tomato? I don’t know about you – but all that choice of tuna just makes me want to buy pink salmon!

In other words, don’t link to everything in your site. It’s confusing. Clear navigation menus are a rarity on the web, so keep it simple. You can reveal new elements as the user digs down through the site heirarchy.