Usability review and feedback from testing

I haven't been following this much at all but tested this out for the first time today. I'd have to agree with the issues with mouse interaction, I found it too sensitive as I would often accidentally trigger a drawer to open. I also expected to click, and if I tried to hover and click quickly it would respond to both the hover and the click, animating twice. I also found it annoying if I open Reports and then move the mouse to the top of the drawer quickly but miss completely it closes the drawer and I need to re open it. I think clicking would work best. I also think it should be possible to middle click or ctrl + click on the top level items to open their index pages in a new tab, currently this is only possible if the item does not have children.

Not sure if this should be a new issue. With navigation in 10.3 there are now some items that can't be clicked. Like Block layout or Paragraph types. This seems to be because parent items are not clickable anymore.

@anruether just to double check, are you also using the admin_toolbar module, because that does add a load of extra menu items for things like individual content types, that might not play well with the navigation module.

@AaronMcHale No, I am not using admin_toolbar.

The thing is, that navigation does not support linked, second level menu items with children. It seems that in core, we only have overview pages which list the child items in these situations (which are now inaccessible). But contrib modules often define child-items of second level core menu items or bring there own menu item structure that work like that. Two examples:

1. paragraphs: Paragraph types is not clickable (child of structure)
2. simple_block: Block layout is not clickable (simple_block adds child link)

I tested this on simplytest.me and not other modules installed. I'll also try to upload screenshots.

then click block layout, then the submenu expands, and then i am able to click the simple blocks menu item which forwards me to admin/structure/block/simple-block

@rkoller And did you succeed in navigating to the block layout page with simple_block module enabled?

edit: I did not say you can't reach the simple_block page. I said that the link target of second level menu items which have children are inaccessible.

But fair enough, let's add steps to repdroduce:

1. Disable toolbar, enable navigation
2. Enable simple_block
3. Open structure submenu
4. Click on Block layout
5. Menu item is not clickable

Thanks for the work on this one.

I agree on the 3rd level, e.g. Taxonomy Overview is not possible to navigate to, you need to first go to e.g. 'Add vocabulary' /admin/structure/taxonomy/add then use the breadcrumb to get to the overview at /admin/structure/taxonomy

I would also like to second this one:

The title within the drawer wasn't considered click-able. It looked like a header with no affordance being a clickable link.

We had clients with the same issue, it was not obvious that they could get at the /admin/people list from this 'People' so they believed they only had access to create new users, but not access a list of existing users to make sure their colleagues could log in:

A possible solution to that one (which could apply to the lower level as well) is to separate the menu item link from the ability to navigate to its child items:

This seems to match the advice in https://infinum.com/blog/website-navigation-dropdown-menus/ which shows that its 'Version 2' which has both the top level link clickable + the overview link within the sub-navigation as being the quickest to achieve the task + the least margin of error for users.

A less clear UX article on it from NN hints at this too in item 12, but the separation only becomes clear when you actually visit the example they point to

I am seeing what's been reported in #12 by @anruether and echo'd by @scott_euser in #19.

Boils down to second level parents are not possible to to navigate to because the entire item is intended to toggle the children.

The primary menu item parents are possible to navigate to, though you need to click twice as they open those items. One to open the children and on the header of the children.

Proposal: split button for the arrow? I was going to give you an example of a site I did, but just saw that I broke the JS on it while I was getting the link, lol... there goes my day...

Hi @joelpittet, you can see a working example of that in the MR here: #3480321: Second level menu items can't be reached if they have children but that will be dropped off in favour of the 'Overview' approach which you can see the discussion there about.

Thanks @scott_euser that is where I should have commented.

It looks like a vertical menu on the left side of the screen is the only option in the new Navigation.

I prefer my administration menu to be at the top, is there an issue for this? It should be like Admin Toolbar, where I can hover my way over menu items, all the way to my destination.

It seems less than ideal, that you have to hover, as well as click, and then click some more, to access a common task, such as node display configuration:

Navigation:

1. Hover "Structure"
2. Click "Content types"
3. Click "Article - Manage Fields"
4. Click "Manage Display"

Admin Toolbar (for comparison):

1. Hover "Structure", all the way to the destination
2. Click "Manage Display"

Also, you need to move the mouse over a much bigger area with a vertical menu, than with a horizontal menu at the top, For example, if you hover "Reports", and have to move the mouse all the way to the top of the screen, to then click "Status reports".

In support of what has already been said...

I hover on Commerce and the menu items open. I then hover on Products and the menu items don't open. I have to click on Products.

I finally click on Products and I am not able to get to the products page. Instead the child items now open.

For me to get to the products page, I will first have to go to Scheduled Products and then to Products.

The same way you can't go from Structure to Feed types. You first have to get to Add feed type and then make your way back to Feed types.