The Race of Gentlemen 2013
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| Source: http://www.morethanmore.com/trog2013/ |
Here's one of my favourite navigation designs. I like the way it looks like a mini website, with images in amongst navigational links. It makes for a more dynamic visual experience without distracting from the site. The featured images on the navigation are all most recent articles to be posted in that section of the site. A good, sure fire, way for a frequent or new user to be targeted with the most up to date material on the website without being pushed into it. I often find that drop down menus like this one don't work very well, but this one is fantastic. It can show a lot of links without becoming visually daunting for the navigator. See RouteOne navigation review below for an example of this style not functioning so well:
Route One
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| Source: http://www.routeone.co.uk/ |
Here there is a very similar navigation system with a large drop down. I realise this is for a bigger website but the lack of images and the huge amount of links makes this website difficult to manoeuvre around from the get go. I can understand the necessity to have specifics once you've selected a product brand or type but it's not needed in the initial menu. On the right you can see the 'Feature' section which is hinting at the functionality and visual design of the 'MTM' navigation reviewed above. I'd imagine having all these links in one page would help with SEO side of things, however I'm yet to delve that deep into the subject to be able to comment thoroughly with evidence to back up my train of thought.