Don't Be Annoying
Don't Let your Submenu Navigation Disappear
Disappearing sub-navigation forces people to click more. Picture this scenario- you've just found a new doll website and you want to see the dolls, so you click the pixels link, and in the center of the page you see a submenu, Dolls, Bases, and Other Pixel Art. So you click on "dolls" and then you click on the "adoptable dolls" link, then you decide to click on "characters" to see all the lovely unique character dolls this person created. Oh they were lovely dolls indeed! You want to see more!! But wait, your menu has disappeared because each time you click a link, the sub-menu is REPLACED with new content instead of being stationary above the content. To get back you have to go through all the same links over and over and over again: Home-Pixels-Dolls-Adoptable Dolls- Characters, Home-Pixels-Dolls-Adoptable Dolls- Fantasy Dolls, Home-Pixels-Dolls-Adoptable Dolls- Adopted Dolls.... do you see where I'm going here? Do you see how incredibly old this gets after a few times? ALWAYS have your subnavigation menus visible so people don't have to go through the slew of links every time to get back to where they were before.
This is especially annoying when coupled with disabling right-click and using frames because people have no choice but to make many more clicks.
In general you should always use heirarchal navigation instead of star navigation and you should use breadcrumbs. Heirarchal navigation lays things out like an outline, with the links of that category and subcategory clearly visible so people can get where they need to get fast. Star navigation has no central navigation system for the section you are viewing- instead you have to click "back" to get back to the main page with all the links. Each page is a dead end. This is simply bad navigation and it chases people away from your site! Breadcrumbs show a trail of links which got you to where you are now (see the top of the page for an example). These allow people an easy way to jump to sections of your site and orient themselves.
Having a back button hidden at the bottom of the page is not the answer. Most of the time, people can't find that back button because they never GET to the bottom of the page or the text is so small the link goes unnoticed. And relying solely on back-buttons show that you are using the star navigation technique- meaning that the page you are viewing becomes a dead end within your subnavigation menu.
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