0

I asked a question here looking for design ideas for an alternative to the nested drop-down menus scheme I had come up with. User mikryz helpfully provided an alternative idea with this mockup:

enter image description here

I'm having trouble figuring out what to display on the left hand side when a user first visits the site and has not selected a "report category" from the top "Reports" drop down menu at the top.

The two ideas I had were to display a vertical bar from top to bottom with the same color as the navigation bar but with nothing in it. Then populate it upon the event. I don't like this idea because I don't want a dark background underneath the content (the nav bar color must stay the same).

The other idea I had was to have the content slide in from the left when the user clicks a Report category. However, I'm still unable to find a way to get it to slide in underneath the navbar instead of pushing the navbar to the right as well (I'm using Bootstrap 3). I know this is a UX forum and not primarily a developers or BS3 forum so I am not holding out hope for help solving this. Suffice to say I've googled for hours without solution. SE prevents me from posting a link to the "answered" solutions to this problem that did not help me.

My question: What should I display in an area on initial page load that only contains content after a user makes a selection?

In particular, looking at the graphic above: what should go on the left-hand side when the page loads for a user but before she has chosen a category of content to display there?

Improve this question

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
1

If I may suggest a slight change of direction:

The layout you provide in the question (I'll call it the "read screen") is tied to a top-level report category - "Local Catalog Maintenance" in this case. If no top-level category is has been selected by the user, you'd want to show a different view entirely.

Typically this would be a "index screen" of some kind - a list of the top-level categories, which the user can click on to get to the read screen.

Improve this answer
1
  • Thanks for your suggestion. I'll try to implement this - it sounds like a great idea.
    – user45183
    Commented Jan 30, 2016 at 19:59
0

Suggestion 1:

Anticipatory design: I would recommend pushing the user to one of the selections based on the data you get from your users. Which one is the hottest zone.

Suggestion 2:

Matrix Solution: You can present the user with the first 2 option he has in your platform. Blue pill: Results Red pull: Reports + a little description for each. enter image description here

Improve this answer

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.