Navigation menus – Usability & Creativity

Navigation menus are a crucial element in testing every website usability. Navigation menus should be simple, intuitive and of course user-friendly. But who said that these navigation menus can’t also be creative and attractive?

In this post – 20 great examples of creative navigation menus.

Via xyberworks

10 Web Design Rules That You Can Break

As web design and design in general have evolved, rules have been established to ensure consistent and usable designs.

These rules are not enforced by anyone and should be broken when necessary, especially when breaking them would lead to a stunning design.

This article presents 10 rules that you can break if it suits your design needs.

Rule #1: Do Not Display the Horizontal Scroll Bar

Rule #2: Use a Minimal Number of Font Faces

Rule #3: Do Not Use Too Many Colors

Rule #4: Make Your Site’s Goal Obvious

Rule #5: Navigation Should Be Easy To Figure Out

Rule #6: Use Different Colors for the Text and Background

Rule #7: Don’t Put Animation in the Way of Your Content

Rule #8: Stick to Web-Safe Fonts

Rule #9: Don’t Have a Splash/Landing Page

Rule #10: Don’t use Tables

Now that you know the rules, Feel free to break them!

Via webdesigner depot

17 Jun

10 Web Design Rules That You Can Break

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As web design and design in general have evolved, rules have been established to ensure consistent and usable designs.

Some of these rules were created simply because website creators abused certain principles without regard for their users.

But these rules are not enforced by anyone and should be broken when necessary, especially when breaking them would lead to a stunning design.

In this article, we present 10 rules that you can break if it suits your design needs. //

Rule #1: Do Not Display the Horizontal Scroll Bar

A significant number of mice don’t have a horizontal mouse wheel. This makes it awkward to scroll left or right when a web page’s content extends past the sides of the browser.

It can be annoying to have to bring the mouse cursor down to the bottom of the window and drag the scroll bar over just to see a word or two that lies beyond the viewable area of the page. That said, here are some well-designed sites that put the scroll bar to work in effective ways.

Benek

Benek uses JavaScript to change the scroll direction of the mouse wheel from vertical to horizontal. Each item in Benek’s portfolio is separated into its own column. The site has a surprisingly fresh feel and flows smoothly.

Shoe Guru

Shoe Guru gets away with horizontal scrolling because it takes advantage of the way people look at shoes. People look at most products from top to bottom, but shoes are different. People’s eyes usually move across the length of the shoe. Using this habit to its advantage, Shoe Guru makes its website’s design flow in the same direction, making the motion feel natural.

Stephane Tartelin

Stephane Tartelin uses the horizontal scroll bar to make his artwork look like it’s in an art gallery. Although the vertical mouse wheel doesn’t function like it does in the examples above, the effect works surprisingly well. You could even argue that the effect would be diminished if the mouse wheel were re-coded to scroll horizontally.

Graphic Therapy

While Graphic Therapy doesn’t display a horizontal scroll bar on its page, it still allows horizontal scrolling by clicking and dragging around the screen. Graphic Theory used horizontal navigation because all of its images are the same height but not the same width. The horizontal navigation helps the site flow smoothly.

The Horizontal Way

The Horizontal Way is a showcase of websites that use horizontal scrolling. The grungy graphics are beautiful, and this site is unique as far as CSS galleries go.

Rule #2: Use a Minimal Number of Font Faces