Website redesign - Menu Design

[saint]

This thread will discuss the menu system look and categories. I'd like suggestions in two veins:

1. What categories and labels should be used for the web site's navigation?
Ex:

What's New?
Submit News
Controls

... Don't feel obligated by what's already in place. All facets of the web site are open to discussion.

2. What design should the menu structure have?

Menu choices down the left?
Menu choices across the top? Tabs?
Static menu choices? (All menu options shown on every page)
Staggered menu choices? (Choosing a menu option brings down/out further menu choices. Example: Under "controls" is "joysticks," "trackballs," "pushbuttons," etc...)

--- saint

[SirPoonga]

I am a fan of left menus.  If you do top menus you are going to have to have a drop down menu system with as much information that is on this site.  Of course this could be done with CSS with a modification to this menu idea.
http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/tutorials/testMenu.html

[Jakobud]

I am also a fan of left side menus.  I think that top menus would get extremely crowded very quickly considering how much content is and will be on BYOAC.

After I give it some thought I'll come back and discuss menu content ideas.

[AlanS17]

Depending on how well everything can be categorized, I think having menus on the top AND left is a good layout. For instance, have the primary categories across the top with sub-categories on the left menu after you've entered a primary category. Any sub-sub-categories would go on the left as well - maybe in some sort of hierarchical outline fashion.

[Jakobud]

Okay I have been looking at a the topics on the existing nav bar and you are not too far off of what needs to be there.

I just have a "News" section instead of whats new.  And I wouldn't bother putting a "submit news" link on the navbar.  Just have a submit news link on the top of the news page itself.  Afterall, that's going to already be the opening page when you get here (on a side note... please no flash intro screens...) and that's where you are going to be submitting news from anyways.

The Search section... I would personally get rid of this.  Instead, at the top of every page, I would have a search field you can simply type into and click search.  it's fast and easy.  I love Mozilla Firefox because of all the built in searching tools and extensions.  I can click in the upper right hand corner search field, choose what search engine I want to search (literally hundreds to choose from) and type in something to search, and click enter and I'm off to the results.  No one wants to goto Google.com and then type in your search.  I'd rather just do it from wherever I am at.  This is the exact same concept I suggest for the BYOAC layout on having a search field at the top of every page.

The Step by Step newbie guide... first of all, I hate that it does this popup window thing that opens over the main page.  Freakin browser highjacking I hate it!  I was typing stuff in here earlier when I clicked on it and I couldn't come back and lost everything I was typing... augh... stupid javascript.  Anyways, this Step by Step guide needs revamped a lot I think.  Perhaps pull parts of your book into it. Of course, then you are giving away your book content for free... I dunno if you want to do that.

Controls through Game Consoles look pretty good...

Some of the other topics are sort of unclear.  "For Sale" to me tells me it's a message board with people posting stuff for sale... but it's retail stuff... perhaps rename that.

Alternatives needs a different name... i dunno

Tech & Tips - is it just me or is this entire site "Tech and Tips" already?  I mean we are building our own arcade machines for goodness sakes.... Every single section looks like a sub category for some Tech and Tips section  Anyways, it looks like a lot of the content in there could be moved into different areas...like controller specific stuff into the controls section.  If I am in the controls section, ALL the info regarding controls should be in there.  All the 'tech and tips'.  All the retail stuff regarding controls.  All the reviews of controls.  Everything.  No one wants to go to 4 or 5 different sections to see all the stuff on controls.  People get bored with clicking too much and they want to leave or get frusterated cause they can't find what they want.

Reviews... hmm reviews should be split up into other sections.  For example, if I'm in the Controls > Joystick section and I want to see some reviews on specific joysticks, the links for these revews should be right there for me to click on... I don't think I want to goto a different section and start searching for what I want.  That hinderance alone sort of makes me not want to bother to look for reviews at all cause it's just a pain.  A general rule of thumb for the site is that you shouldn't have to click the mouse more than a few times to get exactly where you want to go.  You should haven't search and dig through some huge page to find what you want.

Downloads also good.

Examples is good, but needs revamped.  It's a pain in the but trying to wade through 1000 different project names.... there must be a better system for searching easily.  I like how you have different systems filling out different things (joysticks, types of buttons, wheels, spinners, arcade vs crt vs tv, etc), but I think you could add a lot of detailed categories into this to make detailed searches easy.  

On a quick side note, have you ever thought about what it would be like to actually host peoples project pages on arcadecontrols.com?  Instead of linking to external ones I mean?  Usually project pages don't consist of too many images and usually just some blogs of how the project is coming along and stuff.  You could even offer some hosting options and charge for it.  Then people could have some accounts where they get on here and update their page with whatever they want.  What would you think of this?

Submit project, in my opinion is a subset of "Examples" so it should be on the examples page.

Msg board (the most clicked on topic on the site I bet), is good, but should probably be quite a bit higher on the list.

Chat room... i see a few people in here every know and then, but is it really helpful?  

Links section... it seems to me that all the Links in there could belong in their own respective sections.

Regarding the actual content of each section I just went through, I didn't look deeply into most of the content, but a LOT of it needs to be MAJORLY updated.

saint I like what you said about having subjects of each section.  That is a great idea.  Do NOT do the 'blog' type pages for the sections.  It's impossible to find stuff easily.  For example, for the Controls section, don't have one big page with Buttons, Dance Pads, Joysticks, Steering Wheels, etc all on it that you have to scroll through.  Each section should have it's own section/page(s) dedicated it alone.  I mean, there is a LOT you could say about Dance Pads or Buttons or Joysticks.  There are so many different types of joysticks it's not even funny and a lot of information could/should be provided about every single one.  You have lots of retail sticks that all the info about all them should be right there, along with links to the retailers sights and review of the joysticks.  Then there are all the NOS and discontinued joysticks out there that should be listed on here.  Along with reviews and perhaps hints on  where to get them used or NOS.  This joystick thing is just an example of all the info that could go into a single section and it shows why each subsection needs it's own series of pages dedicated to itself alone.

I think that keeping the menu's on the left side is good.  It's the most common way to do it on the internet.  I wouldn't be to into the topics/sections listed on the top... there is just too much info here for that.

Static menu choices are good.  But if you are in a section with subsections, those subsections should be integrated into the navbar accordingly.

Staggered menu choices are good.  It will keep things organized and help people get to what they want more easily.  

Okay thats all I can think of for now.  Hopefully this will help you saint.

[AmericanDemon]

I want to comment, but I cannot add anymore than what Jakobud has already said.  

[AlanS17]

Couldn't find the right thread to put this in, but I second the vote for hosting projects. That would also make it infintely easier to keep track of dead links.

Sorting and searching would also be way simpler since everything about these machines would be at your fingertips.

Providing templates with fill-in-the-blank forms for journals and pictures would make everything more uniform and make searching by different aspects easier, not to mention the machines could be classified better (upright, cocktail, etc).

Hosting would also provide a method for a real-time ratings sytem. People could choose their favorites on a 5-star basis or something like that.

[Darkstalker]

"Depending on how well everything can be categorized, I think having menus on the top AND left is a good layout. For instance, have the primary categories across the top with sub-categories on the left menu after you've entered a primary category. Any sub-sub-categories would go on the left as well - maybe in some sort of hierarchical outline fashion."

I agree to a certain extent.  You could put the primary links across the top for the site itself, and more specific links on the left.  For example, you could put Home, News, Forums, Contact, and Links across the top.  Those are website "staple" pages, and it seperates them so they are easier to find.  Down the left side is where you could put more "BYOAC specific" links.

Another guideline I like to follow is that I shouldn't have to click more than 3 times to get to any page/section on your site.  Any deeper than that and it becomes a navigation nightmare.

[AlanS17]

Maybe I didn't explain it well enough, but that's pretty much what I meant anyways.

[Jakobud]

At first, I didn't think that putting menu categories at the top and the side was a good idea... i thought that just on the left side was good....

BUT, Darkstalker changed my mind, with the way he worded that.  Having the 'staple' links along the top is a good idea!  I like it.

[AlanS17]

That's basicaly what I was trying to say from the beginning, but I guess I didn't say it correctly. However, I think that Examples and a super-generalized How-To to link to the meat of the site would also be in order.

[goofy]

You can have two rows of top menus, with the first being master categories and the row just below that subsets of the top row category that is selected.

For instance, the top row could have Message Board, Getting Started, FAQs, Artwork, Examples, etc.

The second row when Message Board was clicked would have the Login/Logout, Search, Rules, Chat, etc. On the main page of the Message Board link would be all the message topics that one could go to (this could also be handled on a left nav bar like Amazon and many others use, as well).

[Darkstalker]

Sorry AlanS17, didn't mean to step on your toes there.    I've got a website template I was using for another personal site that I'm not going to end up using.  Maybe I can rig up a BYOAC template and see what kind of layout picture I can come up with...

[Goz]

Would a tabbed interface such as this one work?

This was done in about 10 mins using IFrames to display the content inside of the index page.

-Goz

[AlanS17]

That's an awful lot of overhead tabs, though. I think the point is to try and avoid that many tabs across the top. The eye travels better up-and-down than side-to-side. That's why newspapers are written in columns instead of all the way across the page.

[WakingJohn]

Well I think the newspaper in cols has more to do with making a comprimise between words per line ( around 7+-2 optimal.  also considering the size being under that of a width of a USD. ) and content space.

Bet yes, way too many.  imo they should be cut down to at most 6 and at least 4.  Things could be further devided from there if you wish, though I dont see it as necessary particularly.

For example:
"New to Mame?" "Buildin' That Bad Boy" "Talk About It!" "Eye Candy" "Sweet Cabs"
for a disgustingly casual theme or
"The Basics" "Advanced Construction" "Talk About It!""Design" "Examples"
for a more formal, yet still a little casual theme.

Basics:  place for n00bs to find out .. well the basics.  
Advanced Construction: Electronics, Cabinet Building, Monitors, Layout, etc in the form of some sort of encyclopedia or searchable content by engine or index.
"Talk About It!" : Forums, Chat, Contact info, etc.  Links to other resources to talk about arcades - newsgroups for example.  This is where any 'buy sell' stuff now as html content should be placed
Design: Artwork for sides in a searchable gallery
Examples: Projects again, searchable by different options.

I'm actually big on top bars for something like this.  it helps seperate mentally "Content" from "Navigation" imho and I believe it flows nicer.  Left Sidebars make me think of ugly 90s websites (no offense meant).

[Goz]

 The example I listed was a quick and dirty throw together of the current links. I agree there would be far too many tabs, but again this is because of the way things are currently organized on this site. (it was a copy of the side bar links from the main site).

 There would need to be a tree of sorts or nested categories for organization purposes of the available topics to reduce the clutter. I guess my point is that I I just wanted to show what a tabbed interface could look like and that it could be done very quickly with minimal code involved.

I had some free time at work (about 10 mins) and wanted to see if features like displaying the forum and chat room within an Iframe would work properly and they do for both IE and Mozilla.

-Goz

[Matt, GoC]

I too like the idea of project hosting for a nominal fee, although that's not the scope of this particular thread...