Drop down menus a thing of the past?

Hello Digital World!

I am very new to web design and am in the process of starting my first blog! I want to set up my blog in a well designed way that readers can easily manage before dumping in a bunch of content. I have been reading that drop down menus are not the best for readability or for SEO purposes, as they stop they flow of the reader and it's more difficult on the google crawlers.

Do you agree?

I have an idea of how I would like to set up my menu and would like to know what you all think. Hypothetically, if my blog was about travel I would have a main tab of destinations. Rather than having a drop down menu that displays all the destinations I've written about, that menu item would take the reader to another page that has a list of links of the different destinations. When they click on these links it would take them to another page that displays all the articles written about this destination whether it would be food, lodging, it is under the main tab of the destination. Basically it starts out broad and then becomes more and more specified.

Would this set up be good for readability? And would it be good for organic google SEO?

Please let me know what you all think and I appreciate any feedback and insight.

Thanks!

 

I still love the normal way of using menu. Drop down menu appeals more to me than tabs.

 

People, for the most part, want to be spoon fed, as they are too lazy to pick up the train of thought to life a utensil themselves. Are you sure that you want to burden your visitors like that?

 

I wouldn't suggest the menu -> page (listing of all) -> smaller listing -> maybe another page -> then the information.

Why not? Because this will make navigating back and forth a real pain in the ass.

Better to use a dropdown. A properly coded drop-down will not affect SEO in any way, since the complete menu will be in the code, just hidden via CSS.

Or rethink the whole thing. A better approach for the site you used as an example might be one page where you have a map with clickable links for getting the information about each destination? So you have a menu item: "Travel destinations", and when you click on that, you get a map with clickable destinations, and when those are clicked, you get a tabbed page - one with food, one with sightings, and so on - that way it's quick and easy to find another destination (not a lot of back and forth), and you can (if you utilize javascript properly) update the url so you direct link to specific entries, and even tabs within specific entries.

But as for your original question, dropdowns aren't that bad - just remember to code them so they work properly on touch-screens as well.

 

To me dropdown menus were a bad idea in the first place. They can trigger in users something called "link overload" where you overwhelm the first-time visitor with options; in that way they are also a waste of bandwidth since if you send it on every page and the user doesn't use all the options, well... do the math.

They are also a pain in the ass on mobile, it's hard enough shoe-horning a dozen or less category/section links in without trying to shove that fat woman's size 18 hoof into a size 7 shoe. For all the scripttard and CSS trickery to try and make them "usable' the result often leaves much to be desired.

What @PoPSiCLe suggested on rethinking it is called "drilldown navigation" -- as in you have to drill-down through the pages of the site section by section to find the subsections. For first time or even experienced users this is often far more useful and usable than a dropdown menu since it avoids ALL the headaches. It's simpler to implement, simpler to use, because it breaks down the navigation into smaller bits for the visitor to the site to digest... instead of just shoving a giant wad of meat in their faces without so much as a "by your leave?"

A massive dropdown menu (see the mental midgetry here on DP for "forum") is like handing someone a 2" thick 1 pound blue steak, (Show the cow what a cigarette lighter looks like, cut it up, slap it on the plate!) and handing them a butter knife and a spoon. Teeth are good at tearing, they're not THAT good. What should be an appealing experience very quickly transforms into being a royal pain in the ass.

 

Drop down menus definitely have their pros and cons. It all comes down to your target audience and the industry in which you website was built for. If it's for the younger audience then drop down menus just simply work. If it's for elderly users, then including a search bar from the word go but really emphasise this feature on the main page will prevent them from having a headache going through your website.

Also for UX, I insist on using breadcrumbs on every page to ensure no user gets lost and clicks on the home page then get annoyed and leave your website (it's happened many times, trust me).

The main goal for when I design websites are always to keep things minimal but creative so the user is intrigued to continue their visit.