Finding the chase and cutting to it

I hate bad design: it shows that an idea hasn’t been tested and proven before implementation.  A great example of bad design can be seen here in the discussion by Wayne Pein (thanks Wayne) – you have to ask, who had it in for the cyclists and pedestrians of Raleigh, NC?  (Note the unintended victims in this case).

For me, this terrible design of cycle lanes is reflected in many corporate web spaces.

Two companies who really should know better are BT and HSBC.  On the face of it, both sites have a clear layout, uncluttered and bite sized information delivered to the user beautifully.  Yet, these looks can be deceiving: both have used the “while your mouse is hovering round the top of the address bar, we’ll drop down some huge menus”.

With a mouse this is a nightmare, a stray finger or rotation on a tablet or phone this behaviour is truly irritating.  When you are actually trying to get to the search bar, it’s all rather hit or miss.  The test and images below are completely obscured while you are trying to move up quickly enough to hit the search.

I love clever menus and have implemented a few in my time, but please, not on screens where users are moving about the screen to read and view the content.