1

Suppose you have to design a website that shows 3 kinds of product and each category has up to 4 differente products. In the main menu you have the 3 dropdown menus each labeled with the relative category. Es. Food for pigs (Apple/Pear/Orange/Cherry) | Food for people (Tbone Steak/Spaghetti/Tomato salad) | Food for cats (Boiled chicken legs/Fish bones/Ground meat)

In the brackets (Apple/Pear/Orange/Cherry) you have the products related to the category Food for pigs.

Do Food for pigs/Food for people/Food for cats have to be links to a page category where all the 3/4 products related to that category are shown and briefly described?

These products are related to a very special field and it's not common to find someone interested in this kind of product. I don't have the possibility to test whether the categories are well designed for real users. How would you test it?

Improve this question
1
  • You're asking two different questions here so you're likely to get answers covering different aspects of your question rather than the whole thing. As a Q&A site each question asked should be singular and unique so that it can be explicitly answered. Can you split these into two separate questions - one for the categories question and the other four the testing one - but do a [Search] of the site first as that testing question may have been asked already.
    – JonW ♦
    Commented Dec 25, 2013 at 9:21

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
2

Do Food for pigs/Food for people/Food for cats have to be links to a page category where all the 3/4 products related to that category are shown and briefly described?

No they shouldn't.

Conceptually, you should differentiate between navigation bars and menus. Navigation bars are a list of navigation items, each takes you to a different page (hence the term navigation). A menu behaves differently - if there is a sub-menu, it opens (in the form of a pop-up box) once you click on it; if there isn't a sub-menu (ie, the item is a leaf) either some command is executed (like copy) or you are taken to the corresponding page. You have to choose between one behaviour or another, but you can't have both.

Note that sub-menus can open on hover or on click - if the latter is the case, then no submenu will open if the parent menu item is a link.

Also, such design may make little sense from a user point of view - reaching a page with bare 3 links.

Having said that, if users will have their javascript disabled (and there are about 1.3% of them), and if the submenu appears using javascript (and not css), then the users will never be able to get to the product pages.

So there are quite a few variables in this decision. Depending on your actual case, you should be able to find the ideal solution.

Improve this answer
-2

I wouldn't rely on conversion testing without a decent amount of testers.

Your alternative would be self-testing. Pretend you are the target market, and base a judgement off that.

Improve this answer
1
  • 1
    This isn't very good advice. Yes, a usability expert can conduct an expert review (aka cognitive walkthrough) but you've not explained what that is and why it's appropriate here beyond saying 'pretend you are the target market' which isn't really a good idea.
    – JonW ♦
    Commented Dec 25, 2013 at 9:18

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our privacy policy.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.