Dropdown menus are for good boyes

Good boyes” are popular on the Internet. We Americans are crazy about dogs.

We had lots of good boyes roaming our college campus: Rocky, Tucker, Tahoe, Buddy, and of course, Caesar. Dogs of all sizes, big small. Purebreds and mutts. Lots of labs.

Dropdown menu navigation on websites hit the web hard and heavy in the mid naughts. They were born from the experience users had with <select> elements in forms.

This year the OUC team at Brown righted a wrong, and brought back to the new Brown University homepage.

Usability experts believed dropdowns offered users too many choices in the navigation. Research indicates 5-7 menu options are ideal. Web designers abandoned dropdowns for simpler navigations. I believe the reintroduction of dropdown menu to mobile device design really cemented easability of use for users.

I have witnessed a frantic return of dropdown menus to web sites. Of the 200+ Analytics accounts I have access to, I have seen a consistent trend. Adding a dropdown nav increases pageviews, time on site, and conversion rates. Users are able to find what they are looking for sooner.

So the good boyes are happy to return to the good old days of dropdown menus. The good boyes are looking good in their designer dog bandanas sitting on their dog bed while Mom and Dad watch the final season of Orange is the New Black.

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