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I am new to the community so sorry if you guys feel i am being naive. I am assigned a task to redesign an existing website that sells shopify plugins. The entire idea of the website revamp is to deliver a better experience and improve conversions.

I am a writer and have now gravitated towards design too.

The reason for the new navigation is to let users know at the very first instance which plugins the developer is selling. So, there is no drop-down to increase a step for the visitor to see plugins. He/She can directly see in the menu.

Also, the idea is to have a different colour for the navigation text when someone is on that page with an underline so that they know where they are on the site.

The plugins will keep coming and we plan to have a 'See All' option in the second menu for shoipfy apps tab.

What do you think about this kind of menu?enter image description here

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  • It's shown that the less links you have hidden away, the more discoverible and therefore you'll get more click returns.
    – RobbyReindeer
    Feb 8, 2018 at 9:36
  • imgur.com/a/lireM
    – Nisha Changrani
    Feb 8, 2018 at 13:51
  • what's your take on this navigation style as the products/plugins will keep increasing...
    – Nisha Changrani
    Feb 8, 2018 at 13:51
  • Will they keep increasing indefinitely? I would say that the more navigation items you will have, the more you will need to group them. Otherwise it just becomes a catalog of products - in that case a Mega Menu would be a good choice.
    – RobbyReindeer
    Feb 8, 2018 at 14:09
  • 25 would be the maximum i guess atleast for now. I am also of the opinion to have a mega menu.
    – Nisha Changrani
    Feb 8, 2018 at 14:14

2 Answers 2

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So, there is no drop-down to increase a step for the visitor to see plugins. He/She can directly see in the menu.

This is a good direction, but your question is Is the navigation user friendly and I have to say IMO, no.

I believe most users don't know what FireAMP or mCheckout are and - due to lack of a better option - they are forced to go into each page just to find out what the products are. In the real world this doesn't happen as often as we'd wish and most users just click away from the page.

Add to this the fact that the product names are in light gray text on light background which makes them hard to read.

If your goal is to improve conversion I would opt for a different design which starts by showing off the most relevant products and highlighting their advantages (preferably in an interesting/enticing way), so users get some motivation to learn more about them.

A nice example of this is on iRobot's website, which have a picture of each product in the navigation so at least you get a sense of what it is.

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  • Thank you so much for your valuable input. The thing is the plugins will go on increasing and in a few months it might reach upto 20-25. After looking into iRobot's site, it looks good too. But the thing is there are only 3 items there...so we can have an image and a couple of words for describing it. But what do we do when we have like 20-25 products?
    – Nisha Changrani
    Feb 8, 2018 at 13:37
  • I was wondering to keep it simple like no drop down because when its more than 10 products - better have a seperate page wherein we can showcase all plugins with respective details and image. And, when someone lands there and clicks on a specific plugin. He/She is shown a sub-menu like shown in this example -
    – Nisha Changrani
    Feb 8, 2018 at 13:42
  • Here is the example - imgur.com/a/lireM
    – Nisha Changrani
    Feb 8, 2018 at 13:49
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So, there is no drop-down to increase a step for the visitor to see plugins. He/She can directly see in the menu.

Yes, This is a good approach. You need to showcase the products on the home page of the site itself. So that the user is not required to find a drop-down and select a plugin from it. This kind of navigation is pretty much proven in all of the e-commerce sites.
Another plus point in directly showcasing the products is that, the user gets a quick snapshot of the products from the main page itself. They may then select the preferred plugin.

Also, the idea is to have a different colour for the navigation text when someone is on that page with an underline so that they know where they are on the site.

You could use breadcrumbs for this if required (for deep navigations). Or you could use simple things like this: enter image description here

enter image description here

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  • How about this navigation style as shown in the image since the plugins will keep increasing.
    – Nisha Changrani
    Feb 8, 2018 at 13:51
  • @NishaChangrani So you tend to add newly released plugins alongside the section with 'inventory'. right?
    – Kishan
    Feb 8, 2018 at 17:36
  • I still think that there is a better option. You could have a thumbnail image of the plugin followed by plugin name followed by 2-3 lines of description. This would constitute one tile. Like this all the plugins would be stacked as tiles on the landing page itself. As number of tiles increases, the page scroll extends. that is it. With this approach, we can have the user seeing all the plugins with a short description also at one go!
    – Kishan
    Feb 8, 2018 at 17:39
  • Yes..right beside the inventory because right now there are 8 plugins and when it extends we might have to do away with this because it would look too cluttered i guess.
    – Nisha Changrani
    Feb 8, 2018 at 17:41
  • i think the best way out is to just have a shopify apps section on the top and when someone clicks there you take them to a page wherein you get to see all the plugins. like in this image
    – Nisha Changrani
    Feb 8, 2018 at 17:42

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