From a design standpoint, however, drop-down menus are an excellent feature because they help clean up a busy layout. If structured correctly, drop-down menus can be a great navigation tool, while still being a usable and attractive design feature.
the dropdown menu can be very usefull for every website visitor and user friendly if they designed simply and match with the website color. here they are, some dropdown menu from various e commerce websites that usually displays their product with a large number and category.
so, what’s the “dropdown menu” definition: in a simple sentences Dropdown Menu is “These panels that appear temporarily and disappear on their own when users move the pointer to another top-level option or to a “regular” part of the screen”.
below you gonna read some explanations why the dropdown menu become so important part on e-commerce website
E-Commerce Website Case:
in order to display as much as possible category, sub category, child, and sub child items, Dropdown Menu is important part from web interfaces to profide comfortability and readability of the items display. there are some aspect to consider if you want to applying some color, focus, and even contrast part in Dropdown Menu :
1. Readability
Readability is defined as reading ease, especially as it results from a writing style. Extensive research has shown that easy-reading text improves comprehension, retention, reading speed, and reading persistence. customers can easily see and choose between the products displays if the texts are easy to read.
2. simplicity
as you know that e-commerce website is a busy website with complex contents, and lots of images and descriptions, the simplicity of the layout is important. the clean and fresh layout with 2 or 3 colors maybe the best choice to make simplicity on your website.
3. Legibility
Keeping to the most basic and common fonts may not seem very exciting, but by using them you’ll ensure that your design is easily read by your visitors. Drop shadows on text, often used to give words the appearance of depth, can be difficult to decipher. Use consistent typefaces and fonts throughout the Drop Down Menu by applying style sheets, pre-setting formatting in sub menu, parent menu, bullet and title applications.
4. Kerning
Kerning refers to the adjustment of space between letters in a word. A designer can specify tight, regular or loose letter spacing to be applied throughout a design or style sheet. Specific adjustments can be made between letters to enhance legibility. For example, the space between a capital A and lower case letters in the drop down often needs to be kerned to make the space smaller.
5. Opacity
there is one reasons why I include the opacity matter to this article, as you can see below, there are some websites display low opacity dropdown menu, opacity makes the bacground still visible while your mouse hover on the dropdown menu, in some case where the sub menu shows a lot number, the opacity help us to improve focus on the text.
6. Clean List
Not only is the element styling important, but the content styling is important, too. Clean typography and a readable list are important. Use smart spacing between elements in the list, and add a border above and below list items.
you can see the dropdown menu designs below and compare it into your own design, I hope you like it. happy design!
