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The Navigation Bar Is an Affordance, Stop Removing It

uxmovement.com

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Re: The Navigation Bar Is an Affordance, Stop Removing It

#11

Post by astazangasta »

Shenglong wrote: post #6

This is a pretty crass statement to make. If the focus is full-on navigability, I agree that contrast in the navigation bar is paramount. Yet, for many sites with simplified features, the emotional experience trumps the direct navigability of the site itself. This is especially true for sites like Airbnb (as in the example) where in addition to emotional response, there is an immediate focus on activating users. The…

The emotional experience I have when I go to a site and see a huge image of some stock photo is anger: "Jesus, what fucking moron put this totally useless picture here, and how do I get to the useful portion of this site and do what I need to do?"

Re: The Navigation Bar Is an Affordance, Stop Removing It

#12

Post by ashark »

Relatedly, I noticed the other day that I'm developing a flick-down reflex in response to seeing those stupid "hero" header images/videos appear on page. It's becoming an unconscious action.

These headers are the Flash Intro Page of our day. Unnecessary hamburger menus and obscured menu text are our version of Flash Mystery Meat navigation.

I blame Apple and iOS 7 for the latter problem. That popularized ultra-thin text-only "buttons" on a background image. It's a bad idea when Apple does it, too, but if you don't follow Apple's aesthetic your stuff looks "dated". A lot of perfectly fine 2007-2010 vintage sites have been mangled by redesigns following this trend, just so they don't "look old".

If someone develops a browser extension to somehow recognize and remove these things without damaging page flow and functionality, I'll install it. Bonus for forcing those floating site menus that disappear on scroll-down and reappear on scroll-up (blocking the thing you were scrolling up to see!) to stay at the top of the page where they belong. I've never once been reading something and been grateful that the site menu was a one-line-of-text scroll-up away rather than being in the header and footer.

Re: The Navigation Bar Is an Affordance, Stop Removing It

#14

Post by TeMPOraL »

jalfresi wrote: post #8
Shenglong wrote: post #6

This is a pretty crass statement to make. If the focus is full-on navigability, I agree that contrast in the navigation bar is paramount. Yet, for many sites with simplified features, the emotional experience trumps the direct navigability of the site itself. This is especially true for sites like Airbnb (as in the example) where in addition to emotional response, there is an immediate focus on activating users. The…

"...the emotional experience trumps the direct navigability of the site itself" The above statement is everything that is wrong with modern visual styling of software. After everything is said and done, software is a tool which people use to accomplish a goal. I would argue that anything that causes friction with that is Bad Design. As much as some visual/interaction designers may think that "experience is everything…

You're right, but there is one key insight you need for your view to be complete: most websites are created to sell you shit - often services, which exist only to be bought. Their actual usefulness is pretty much irrelevant beyond the point people start paying for them. Your ability to use a website / webapp to create value is not something they care about.

As an industry we're hurting ourselves by being in this state of cognitive dissonance. The result is that designers try to apply patterns for selling people shit when they're working on tools, even if given tool is the "real deal" and not meant to drive sales by appearance.

Re: The Navigation Bar Is an Affordance, Stop Removing It

#15

Post by vonklaus »

To be fair, right where airbnb is cutoff is a massive searchbox for your travel destination. The NYT/news in general, they have navigation but they typically put breaking headlines/articles on the front page with links to othet sections. I assume squares nav goes fixed on scroll.

I know that friction is bad, however, I refuse to assume that my users have an IQ of less than a carrot. I am not exactly asking them to sprint laps by either clicking an icon, or looking in the place they expect a navbar and figure out they can still use the links if I didnt make the rectangle box they sit in white

Re: The Navigation Bar Is an Affordance, Stop Removing It

#16

Post by SlimPickins »

jalfresi wrote: post #7
Domenic_S wrote: post #3

Although it's my same intuitive feeling, Your background image is not more important than your navigation bar is a pretty strong assertion without citing studies or presenting some trends in user stories.

Really? You really need studies and trends to decide if the bleedin' obvious is necessary? If your users can't use it, it doesn't matter how pretty it is.

Absolutely. How many users feel this way? How many users find this scenario unusable? How many reported feeling "helpless".

The author is making a very broad statement, without supporting data it's nothing more than opinion.

Which it is.

Because there is no data to support the claim.

Re: The Navigation Bar Is an Affordance, Stop Removing It

#17

Post by jseliger »

Funny that this article should appear: I have been complaining about the Campaign Living website for a while: http://www.campaignliving.com/. The Campaign Living product concept is very interesting—furniture that's actually comfortable but that can also be taken apart. But there is no nav bar and few details about the product on their site. It's very annoying. Their desktop browser experience feels broken.

All this is terrible because the product looks so interesting.

Contrast the Campaign Living site with another startup's site: https://vanhawks.com/. This one has a similar big picture on the front page. But there's also a functional nav bar at the top. Product details don't get lost in the big pretty pictures. It's easy to figure out what Vanhawks is selling and what differentiates their product.

Re: The Navigation Bar Is an Affordance, Stop Removing It

#18

Post by jerf »

vonklaus wrote: post #15

To be fair, right where airbnb is cutoff is a massive searchbox for your travel destination. The NYT/news in general, they have navigation but they typically put breaking headlines/articles on the front page with links to othet sections. I assume squares nav goes fixed on scroll. I know that friction is bad, however, I refuse to assume that my users have an IQ of less than a carrot. I am not exactly asking them to sp…

"I refuse to assume that my users have an IQ of less than a carrot."

Think of it less as an IQ issue and more of a "cognitive energy" issue. Even a smart person would prefer something easier rather than harder because they've got things to do with their limited cognitive energy budget other than merely navigate your website. Plus energy burned that way is energy they're not burning on your actual content, whatever it may be.

It's like accessibility in general; you make your site work well for impaired vision, you've almost certainly improved it for everybody.

Re: The Navigation Bar Is an Affordance, Stop Removing It

#19

Post by gnaritas »

Shenglong wrote: post #6

This is a pretty crass statement to make. If the focus is full-on navigability, I agree that contrast in the navigation bar is paramount. Yet, for many sites with simplified features, the emotional experience trumps the direct navigability of the site itself. This is especially true for sites like Airbnb (as in the example) where in addition to emotional response, there is an immediate focus on activating users. The…

> the emotional experience trumps the direct navigability of the site itself

Users don't come to a website for an emotional experience, they come to use the tool to do something. Emotional experience never trumps usability, ever. The only emotional experience sites with bad usability have is user anger at not being able to figure out how the damn thing works.

Re: The Navigation Bar Is an Affordance, Stop Removing It

#20

Post by Domenic_S »

SlimPickins wrote: post #16
jalfresi wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? You really need studies and trends to decide if the bleedin' obvious is necessary? If your users can't use it, it doesn't matter how pretty it is.

Absolutely. How many users feel this way? How many users find this scenario unusable? How many reported feeling "helpless". The author is making a very broad statement, without supporting data it's nothing more than opinion. Which it is. Because there is no data to support the claim.

Right. It also depends on the goal for the site. Is the goal to have the user click a signup button? Then maybe a nav bar isn't really important, because you don't want them poking around.
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