Partial Dropdown Submenus

If there’s one thing I hate, it’s horizontal menus that only have partial submenus. (When it comes to web design, there are a lot of things I hate, and I don’t think I could hate only one of them, but I wanted to emphasise how much I hated this.)

What I mean by this is a horizontal menu that fires a submenu drop down when you hover a main menu item. However, some websites only attach submenus to some of the main menu items.

Why does this bug me? Because even after 8.5 years of being online, when there isn’t consistency, I think something is wrong. In this case, if the first two menu items fire submenus, but the third does not, then I automatically assume the code used to fire the submenu on the third menu item is broken.

It is my opinion that if you are going to use submenus, you should design the menu architecture so every menu has submenus. Otherwise, don’t use submenus at all.

By Kim Siever

I am a copywriter and copyeditor. I blog on writing and social media tips mostly, but I sometimes throw in my thoughts about running a small business. Follow me on Twitter at @hotpepper.