pull-down menus

So the big innovation for today is the DHTML pull-down menus at the top of the page. They only work in Explorer, and while I hate browser-specific enhancements, I did them for two reasons.

The first reason, of course, was to see if I could. I’m no JavaScript whiz (the code was ripped from microsoft.com.) so I needed to test my skills. But second, and more importantly, it makes an important UI point that I think gets ignored too often.

You see, all users of existing windowing operating systems are familiar with pull-down menus, yet almost no websites take advantage of this fact. I find this oversight inexcusable. One of the primary tenets of usability is consistency, to take advantage of knowledge the user already has. Since everyone knows menus, and a large percentage of browsers support them, sites oughtta have ’em.

‘Nuff said.