October 14, 2005
Dynamic navigation
We are building a web application with 3 menu levels. The client insists on being able to navigate to any 2nd-level item of non-active top menu choices, and to any 3rd-level item of non-active 2nd-level choices in the side menu, with just one page reload, thus forcing us to introduce dropdowns to the top menu and make the side menu expandable. Are there any good arguments against dynamic menus? We'd like to avoid dynamic elements.
If by “dynamic menus” you mean “dynamic navigation” (expanding menus activated by clicking or hovering), then the answer is: It depends.
Dynamic navigation is a tool to reduce the clutter and amount of information on the page. However, if your web application needs to consider special user populations such as those using screen readers, elderly users who have a difficult time with hand-eye coordination and using the mouse in general, or users who just aren’t very technically savvy, then dynamic navigation can be problematic.
Conversely, we’ve seen dynamic navigation work well. In one case, the users of the web application were all very technically savvy and used the application several hours a day. For these users, shaving split-seconds of time off each task was critical, and dynamic navigation was part of a solution that kept their application ahead of the competition in terms of efficiency.
We can’t tell you that dynamic navigation is good or bad across the board. You should consider how well it serves the needs of your specific user audiences, then decide.
