pull-down menus 27 Aug 1999 1999-08-27 1999-08-27 nyc, javascript, ui, usability, accessibility So the big innovation for today is the DHTML pull-down menus at the top of the page. They only work in Explorer, and while I hate browser-specific enhancements,... 1

pull-down menus

So the big innovation for today is the DHTML pull-down menus at the top of the page. They only work in Explorer, and while I hate browser-specific enhancements, I did them for two reasons.

The first reason, of course, was to see if I could. I’m no JavaScript whiz (the code was ripped from microsoft.com.) so I needed to test my skills. But second, and more importantly, it makes an important UI point that I think gets ignored too often.

You see, all users of existing windowing operating systems are familiar with pull-down menus, yet almost nowebsites take advantage of this fact. I find this oversight inexcusable. One of the primary tenets of usability isconsistency, to take advantage of knowledge the user already has. Since everyone knows menus, and a large percentage of browsers support them, sites oughtta have ’em.‘Nuff said.

Cite this post

APA
Dash, A. (1999, August 27). pull-down menus. Anil Dash. https://anildash.com/1999/08/27/pulldown-menus/
MLA
Dash, Anil. "pull-down menus." Anil Dash, 27 Aug. 1999, anildash.com/1999/08/27/pulldown-menus/. Accessed .
Chicago
Dash, Anil. "pull-down menus." Anil Dash. August 27, 1999. Accessed . https://anildash.com/1999/08/27/pulldown-menus/.