I have noticed the following navigation pattern recently and am wondering if this is a "good" pattern in your experience. - Can you point to any usability research about the pattern?
It basically works like this: Show important "shortcuts" as a regular horizontal menu but hide the rest of the site navigation in a "Full menu" drawer. If you have sub sites the visible shortcuts in the horizontal menu can change and reflect the current site you are on. It basically replaces and combine a global menu, utility menu and/or a footer menu.
The pattern could be seen at for example Volvocars.com. A slightly different version of this pattern can also be seen at Microsoft.com
The benefits that I can see is the following:
- Less clutter. It helps the visitor find the most important pages.
- Discoverability. It replaces the footer menu.The users don't have to scroll down to the bottom of the page just to check if there's more content on the site.
- Easy to maintain. You could use the same drawer as a hamburger menu on smaller screens.
The drawbacks
- Discoverability. Do the users actually see and understand the menu?
- Confusion. If the shortcuts in the horizontal menu are being repeated in the Full menu do the users think that they are different pages?
What are your takes on this pattern?