Need Feedback on Website Redesign

I am in the very early stages of a website redesign that will probably take many months to complete. As part of this redesign, I want to redesign the tabbed menus, changing them to a drop-down tabbed format.

Below is what I propose as the menu structure. Please let me know what you think of it, and offer me any constructive feedback.



Home


Articles
--Performance Tuning
--Clustering
--General DBA
--General Developer
--All Articles, by Date


Tips
--Performance Tuning
--Clustering
--General DBA
--General Developer


FAQS
--Performance Tuning
--Clustering
--General DBA
--General Developer


T-SQL Scripts


Testing (will include self-tests)


Books
--Book Reviews
--Book Excerpts


SQL Server News
--Current News
--Upcoming Events


Software
--Software Reviews
--Free Downloads
--Discounted Software


IT Research Library (third-party IT resources)


Career


Forum


Web Logs


Membership
--Benefits of Joining
--How to Manage Your Account
--Monthly Contest
--Free Technical Magazines






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Brad M. McGehee, MVP
Webmaster
SQL-Server-Performance.Com

In my humble opinion, market trends have moved swiftly away from the use of drop down menus in web pages as users find them difficult to use. A menu system on the Left hand side is more intuitive if you wish to show sub categories, where it is then easy to have the sub menu expanded downwards without covering up any part of the screen.

I personally don't see any great advantage in providing semi-immediate access through the use of a sub menu as opposed to having just the main titles Articles, Tips... etc. It takes about the same amount of time to navigate to the part of the sub menu but with no info available to describe the sub menu item. I am in favour of having just the headings, users click on them, and then they can see the sub choices with maybe a description of each and a summary of number of articles perhaps.

Just my thoughts.

Dave

david@matiogi.com
www.matiogi.com

That's the kind of feedback I am looking for. So what do others think? Is a tabbed, drop-down interface better, or do you prefer a left hand side menu? Or maybe something else?

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Brad M. McGehee, MVP
Webmaster
SQL-Server-Performance.Com

A left hand side menu will be prefrable with all simple and easy to understand options. [specially designed for new coming users]

Another this will be great, if you can include an option to find all post those have not recieved any reply till now. [may be for moderator's or senior forum members only]



Deepak Kumar

--An eye for an eye and everyone shall be blind

Yeah, and if it's possible I'd like some way of seeing a list of topics that I am involved in that other people have subsequently replied to. I know you use a third party tool for this so not sure how easily possible this will be.

Having said I'd like a left hand side menu, i think that would be good except i like this massive full width you have on the site. So maybe for the home page and some other pages have the full LHS menu and for others, like the forum, have just the menu headings (no drop downs) along the top.

Am I just being awkward? 8()

david@matiogi.com
www.matiogi.com

My current redesign project will only affect the part of the website I can easily control. Other parts, like the forum, that use third-party software, won't be changed at this time, although I will consider doing so after this current project.

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Brad M. McGehee, MVP
Webmaster
SQL-Server-Performance.Com