The other day I pulled into a Dunkin’ Donuts Drive through lane. There it hit me. Voila, the menu was clear concise and I could immediately could find what I was looking for. I thought about it, and this is very similar to my goal when I build a navigation menu for people’s websites. Think about it, when you go to drive-through window they do a very good job of putting the things they want you to see (and order) front and center. These may be value deals and different things like that. Easy to order, and my guess is profitable for the franchise.
The reason this came into my mind was I had taken over managing the website for a company a while back. They had one of these wacky menus as I like to call them. It spanned the width of the page and had 50 sections. It took me five minutes just to find where their contact page link was! To me this is the exact opposite of what UX design [Definition] is all about. Now I have to admit, it did look pretty cool, you had pictures, different sections, separators and all kinds of cool and funky things. But what a mess from a user experience standpoint. I explained to my client, which I have preached since 1996 is to have a simple clear menu. Everything on your site should be a couple of clicks in, unless you are a big big company with thousands and thousands of webpages.
I look at it like this, the main menu buttons themselves are kind of like fast food restaurants’ value meals. These are the main sections of your website and the most important. These are your bread and butter, these are what you need people to click on to see your most valuable content. Under those, you can have various subsections of your website. But don’t go crazy. I hate when you mouse over a link and then you see another level of links and then you mouse over that and you see another level. (I am tired just writing about it) To me this gets away from good design practices. I’m not saying it’s never necessary, but my feeling is you should avoid those third and fourth level menus if at all possible.
Now that about 50% of your visitors are looking at your site on mobile, the simplification of menus has taken precedence in our user interface designs. You want to make sure that mobile menus are so simple and you’re not seeing 30 or 40 links.
Use the KISS principle when planning menus. Keep It Simple……
I always love seeing 
companies do things differently. We live in such a follower society, where companies do what everybody else does. No originality. Followers seldom succeed in business. The trendsetters, the originals are the ones that really make an impact. Apple of course comes to mind, but happily there are other examples.
So, as you can imagine I love seeing what are REI is doing in closing on Black Friday. They of course are an outdoor outfitter, so this whole OptOutside hashtag is a fabulous idea on many levels. From an employer’s standpoint, this will have a positive ramifications for a long time. People looking for work will look at this company with a favorable light. Even customers that enjoy the savings that Black Friday offers will be impressed and we’ll have a much more positive view of this company. Everyone wants to support a company that does the right thing by its employees.
Now of course the naysayers will find something negative about REI. I read one analyst who said they aren’t deep discounters anyway so it’s not a big deal. Way to go negative you genius.
“The thing that is powerful to me is this clearly is not a financially self-serving act,” he says. “It’s an act where we’re really making a very clear statement about a set of values.” ~REI President and CEO Jerry Stritzke
They are even taking it a step further, REI will have no Black Friday promotions and won’t process any online orders until Saturday. They will just a small handful of its approximately 12,000 employees will be on call, while the rest get a paid day off. This to me really shows their commitment to this. I figured their web department will be processing orders although the brick and mortar stores themselves would be closed. So, this isn’t a publicity stunt, this is an authentic attempt to change their company values, and highlight their commitment to their workers. So those folks get to spend more time with their families, which is exactly what Thanksgiving is for in my view.
Now of course, you are wondering what does this have to do with my company, RooSites. Well, since you asked I will respond with the answer. One of the main things I always tell clients is that a website if nothing else should differentiate you from your competitors. You need to show why you are great. We spend too much time doing competitive analysis, when we really need to be spending time showing them why we our better, why we are the best. Your about page (which is one of the most viewed) is a great place to do this. I encourage you to make sure that page shows your value proposition.
