1. Older people have difficulties with drop-down and multi-level menus, because their manual dexterity, eye-hand coordination and space perception decreases. Also some move the mouse when clicking, or tremble, hence it’s more likely they slip off the menu. Hell, that happens to me frequently!

   However, did you notice the Windows Start Menu is more forgiving when you slip off an item? There’s a little delay before the secondary level is hidden. Perhaps we need an event-capturing script tolerating a slip from the menu rather than the immediate reaction of the mouseout event.

2. Nested menus are more complex. According to Hick’s Law orientation in a multi-level menu can take longer than multiple clicks in a flat menu with good information architecture. See an earlier article for the math.

3. The navigation must be accessible by keyboard alone. The result should be the same, whether you hover over an item or tab to it. So check for the focus event and CSS pseudo-class. Don’t forget to test backwards tabbing (shift tab). By the way, mobile devices have no mouse either…

   The tab order should be consistent and logical, i.e. not jumping around on a page. Also the focused item should be visible, for example highlighted with the default 1px dotted border some browsers draw around it. Some people think this is ugly and remove the default border. That is a no-no.

   And if you really want desktop behavior, add support for the arrow keys (event.keyCode 37-40). Keep in mind though that screen readers have predefined functions for the arrow keys in combination with the ctrl, shift, or alt keys. In JavaScript those keys can be detected with the event.ctrlKey, event.altKey, and event.shiftKey properties. Also crossbrowser event delegation for focus or blur events can be a bitch, thankfully PPK has a solution.

4. Users of AT should have means to skip content. That’s possible with semantic markup: a menu as (nested) list(s) enables them to jump to the next block. Also there should be a few skip links at the beginning of the code pointing to important sections on the page, such as content, navigation, or search. Mobile users also profit from that technique (try surfing eBay with Opera Mini ).

5. Pages never link to themselves. When I click on a link (the menu being no exception) I expect to land on a different page. Therefore it’s confusing to land on the same page. This happened to me recently when I was filling out a form on my mobile phone and got the same page with an error message. It took me a while to realize where I was. It’s the same whether you have a tiny screen or a low screen resolution to see things larger when you are visually impaired: you only see a small part of the page, so it’s hard to realize when something unexpected happens.

6. You can add some semantic sugar with the ARIA role property. In this case <ul role="navigation"> would be appropriate. I strongly encourage you to use ARIA as it is widely supported by browsers and screen readers, enhances a disabled user’s experience, and doesn’t break old browsers. A most recent introduction has been written by Gez Lemon for the Opera Developer Community.

7. If a second level navigation is initially hidden with display:none it won’t be in the screen reader buffer. Therefore off-screen positioning is a better idea, else you need to update the buffer by writing random values into a hidden input field.

8. A common problem in menus is limited horizontal space. Text should be scalable, and it must not jut-out into other page elements when it is enlarged. Even normal text can break a narrow menu when you think of internationalization. In German there are many composite words. While building a website for a competing brand I came across a menu item on the Philips website for “male grooming.” The German word „Körperhaarpflegesystem” is guaranteed to blow every menu!

   Another common problem that prevents scaling in menus are text graphics. I know marketing just loves to see the corporate font in the main menu, but text in images can’t be scaled, people with visual impairments can’t change text and background colors for higher contrast, and Flash Image Replacement like sIFR still has accessibility issues, is known to distort fonts, is CPU intensive and slow. The bottom line is: don’t use text as images, make textual information text.

So much for accessibility. Besides there are a few technical issues to consider: mobile devices often have problems with JavaScript or with layers. Some proxies in large companies filter JavaScript for security reasons, so you can’t rely on the ubiquitous availability, your script has to be unobtrusive, and you can’t rely on noscript either. Don’t even think of creating a menu from JavaScript arrays.

Moreover there’s a well-known bug in IE6 responsible for showing select lists always in front of any layers (like your second level menu), regardless of a z-index. Thankfully there are plugins like bgiframe for jQuery to solve this. Multi-level menus can bloat the code, event handling can be CPU intensive (use event delegation). And if large amounts of menu code is at the beginning, the real content gets further behind and less relevant for search engines.

In conclusion, for an alleged quicker entry you pay with many disadvantages. Often drop-down menus just conceal a poorly planned information architecture. I would reconsider their usage.

Did I forget something? What’s your opinion on drop-down menus? Love them or hate them?

In this post

• Jesse James Garrett
• Molly Holzschlag
• Mark Boulton
• Jon Hicks
• Hannah Donovan
• Shawn Lawton Henry
• Richard Ishida
• Andy Clarke

First off was Jesse James Garrett, the creator of the term AJAX, who held a keynote presentation with all the usual quotes, big stock photos, historical references to technical pioneers (this time the inventor of the Kodak film roll) and such (podcast). I’m afraid I can’t bear victorian black and white photos of technical pioneers in the context of web development any longer. OK, so this guy changed the way photos were made in 1885. Also web applications are a little more convenient now than server roundtrips. But where’s the common element? One made photography easier for the mainstream, the other is a much hyped technique with the potential to make things easier, but quite often people just blow it.

Don’t believe the hype. Most web applications still don’t innovate, they just copy desktop behavior. And who is really comfortable with the restrictions of desktop software anyway? If it’s only a matter of response rates, learn from Yahoo! how to minimize the amount of data being sent on server requests. If I can update a whole page in 1-2 seconds using smart caching and other techniques, there’s no need for an AJAX request except for immediate form feedback helping users to avoid errors. Film rolls have faded from the face of Earth, it really would be more interesting what’s next, after AJAX. Jesse talked about user-centered design, cited Tim O’Reilly with the paradigm to “design from the outside in.” But that only means: after having taken one usability step back, eventually we will move forward. Where to? Jesse failed to deliver that.

A key factor to understand why browsers are such a pain is to remind yourself that they are just a piece of software, said Molly Holzschlag, now working for Microsoft (podcast). In fact very complex software. She compared the pros and cons of different browsers and what we can learn from them: short iteration circles and automated updates from Firefox, a strong brand and user identification from Opera. Otherwise she recommended that if you really need a feature in IE, make yourself heard. Put pressure on Microsoft to get priority. Just telling them you “want” something like multiple background images or WAI ARIA support won’t be enough. Your voice and your friends’ might weight more than that of the W3C, because you are their customers, their userbase.

Mark Boulton’s presentation about typography gained more momentum after a while (podcast). He explained why Verdana is lighter than Arial, and that you should blur your design to identify the optical gray gradient of a page. Then he continued to talk on grids and how to design to a vertical rhythm, a topic well known from print but rather unrecognized in web design until last year. Quite fashionable are headlines in a serif font for a better structure, and paying attention to small details like using the correct quotation marks or dashes can make a difference.

Jon Hicks showed us how to be a creative leech sponge (podcast). Get your inspiration everywhere — with two exceptions. Do sketches, keep those you draw during phone calls, take photos of typefaces, keep photos gone bad just for the color effects, collect labels from clothes, get leaflets (the “all you can eat buffet for designers”; get even the bad as you might need to mimic bad design some day). Get inspiration from book covers, graphic novels, books for children, magazines, patterns, prints, or packaging design. Blogs and flickr groups also help you to get inspiration, delivered right to your desktop through their RSS feed. The two exceptions? Other websites and logos, because there’s a high risk you will come up with a copy instead of an original idea. They are too close to the desired product so there’s no room for creative transformation.

Once you have collected inspirational material, it needs to be cataloged. That can be done in a sketchbook, but iPhoto, Yojimbo, or flickr will do the job.

Catalysts against a creative block (the dreaded blank page) can be deadlines, changing your environment and going for a walk or drive, going to bed, some peace and quietness (in the bathroom, where you keep the magazines for inspiration), taking a shower, or traditional techniques like brainstorming, mindmapping, criticizing and learning from bad examples, or moodboards. If your clients are adventurous enough, they can even do their own.

Some people are angry about Last FM’s sell-out to CBS, but Hannah Donovan didn’t make the impression that a petty-minded corporate spirit has taken over (yet). She talked about lessons you learn in a startup, like getting started, getting out the product very quickly (before others do it), taking small iteration steps with the rapid development technique Scrum, and using broad brushstrokes as a designer. Perfectionism is no priority for startups. Also she recommended that designers and developers work on a team (really) and hold 5 minute stand-up meetings every morning, “that makes a world of difference.” That actually means sharing a room, you know.

Shawn Lawton Henry works for the W3C WAI and the MIT, naturally she talked about accessibility (podcast). That’s something most people take as “what you can get away with,” but it’s really about people. So it’s important to understand how people with disabilities use the web. Technical standards like the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG) only supply a shared definition of requirements. Because they are not going to change for a while you better take the time to review the current version. However, the WCAG Techniques document will be adaptable and more flexible. There will be subversions, and although there’s no issue tracker at the moment, you will be able to submit additional techniques to meet the WCAG requirements as they are intended to grow with time.

I didn’t take notes on Richard Ishida’s presentation about I18N because I was familiar with the slides already, but I was deeply impressed by this man (podcast). Richard lives and breathes internationalization. He speaks about a dozen languages and doesn’t let a chance pass to practice them. He is the perfect personification as head of W3C I18N activity. I only wish he had said a few things about the I18N tag set because it’s a mighty tool for translations and fairly new.

On a related subject Andy Clarke asked designers worldwide if they thought their country or region got a distinctive design style, and he compared international websites of global players (podcast). While most of them just work, they could do better by adapting to the local customs and style. Culturalization is the key, anything else is modern imperialism. Check his presentation (PDF, 18 MB).

Somehow it was different than last year. Of course I came home full of inspiration, but this time it was more like deepening knowledge, while last year for example the concepts of microformats or browser performance were totally new for me. I met more people than in 2006, and I feel some of them can become my friends. That’s a new experience at a conference. I even found some parallels with Joe Clark. No, I’m not a “sarcastic gay vegan,” but we both don’t drink, prefer tea, and can be quite pedantic… I even linked to his website without rel=nofollow now, what an improvement! Anyway, I’m looking forward to meet some of my new friends in Brighton at d.construct.

Objectives of the WaSP ILG include

• information and discussion about web standards and accessibility, particularly with regard to localization,
• outreach through blogs, books, articles, presentations, code, design, vision and leadership,
• translation and internationalization of documents and resources,
• keeping an eye on web trends.

There are and will be local geek meetings called “WaSP Cafés,” perhaps on a smaller scale than barcamps or other unconferences, but with the same attitude to share, discuss, learn, and get feedback.

I must admit the WaSP ILG website is a little jammed with multilingual texts where language negotiated content would be more appropriate, also the ILG is not yet featured on the front page, and there are a few minor accessibility flaws like pages linking to themselves or the logo being a background image. But I’m convinced these issues will be addressed soon. After all, the group is only six weeks old, and currently a lot of people are actively participating at SXSW.