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I am working on a design which requires a mega menu to popup when top link is hovered over. The top link is also a link and clicking on it takes the user to a specific page. While this works pretty well on desktops, on mobiles it becomes a problem since on clicking the top link user is directed to the page and I dont have an option for hover on mobile and I still need to show the mega menu.

A solution I thought of was using the first click on Mobile for showing the menu and the second click on the top link takes the person to that page.

One site which does that is etnies which when viewed on an ipad uses the single click to open the mega menu and the second click takes the user that top link page.

My question is that would be this be considered acceptable behavior when browsing on mobile or are there alternatives ? The option of having the top element not as a link is not a viable feasibility.

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Double-clicking or double-tapping in mobile typically shouldn't be used as it conflicts with a lot of devices' native functionality (for instance, iPhone's zoom on double tap). An alternative would be to include a secondary link/button to trigger the drop-down at the mobile/tablet level that sites next to the link. You see these all the time (usually as an arrow that toggles between up and down).

Aside from not conflicting with the users' assumed device functionality, this also has the advantage of being well recognized in terms of expected functionality and frees your first-level links up to behave as you've described.

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  • Can you give me an example of the secondary link option ? Thanks
    – Mervin
    Commented Aug 17, 2013 at 5:53
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    Sure, look at the top of this page, on the left side of your username. Functionally, that arrow's a little different, but that's the sort of thing that can be used on a mobile menu to hint at accordion/drop-down behavior.
    – monners
    Commented Aug 17, 2013 at 5:55

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