Mega Menu For Navigation [When To Use And Not]

A lot of online retail sites are using a Mega Menu. Usually, these are the business that has multiple webpages. If you are into an online retail business, a mega menu might be something just for you. It helps users navigate through large content, which includes sections and subsections on your site. It can indeed improve the shopping experience of your users on your site.

So, here is a detailed guide on the mega menu that will help you understand whether it would help your business or not. Also, as a bonus, don’t forget to check out our plugin suggestion, which might help you to implement and manage a mega menu on your site.

What Is A Mega Menu, And How Is It Different From A General Menu?

One of the most popular sites that use a mega menu is the Amazon UK site. It has a mega menu that helps serve as a navigation menu and make all the options visible at once. It is appended vertically and horizontally, both, sometimes split into sections if needed. Some of the sites choose to use the mega menu only for specific regions.

For example, the Amazon US site has a standard drop-down navigation menu. Still, the Amazon UK site dawns a mega menu. It confirms that a mega menu is not always an answer to retail eCommerce sites’ needs.

Features That Make Mega Menu Different From The Standard Drop-Down Menu

– One or more large panels are divided into different groups for better navigation.

– Navigation panel structured using layout, typography, and sometimes icons.

– Everything on the online store is visible at once, and users don’t have to scroll or click on the submenus.

Mega Menus And User Experience

While looking at the mega menu features, it is quite apparent that the mega menu is beneficial for improving the user experience. So, let’s evaluate it for user experience:

1. Does The Mega Menu Improve The Navigation Around Your Site?

Indeed, the mega menu looks cool and is an excellent addition to your site, but you should always choose what is better for the user experience. If the mega menu will make the navigation process smoother and intuitive, go for it. If not, stick to the standard drop-down menu.

2. Does The Mega Menu Meet The Website Objectives?

What are the website objectives? What made you develop the website and what you could not achieve through a brick and motor store in layman’s terms. About everything on your website, be it site design, content, or in this case, the menu should all fall back to meet your objective.

Some of the common website objectives are:

– Reach customers online

– Make communication easier with customers/ potential customers, and sell your products.

– To make an online reputation.

– Reduce your operation cost.

– Gain data from users for cost-effective marketing.

These were just some common objectives; a website can have many objectives. Jot down what are your website objectives. It will help you optimize your eCommerce website and its web pages to meet the user expectations and achieve your goals.

Mainly, when it comes to the menu, if you have a large and complex store, a mega menu might be the best way to go. But if you have only one service or product, a mega menu might be a distraction for the users or the customers. It can also increase their confusion, and people might bounce back.

Understand what you want from your website, and decide whether the mega menu fits anywhere in it. Take time to consider what you are trying to achieve here. Where in your site you want to encourage visitors to go. And what kind of navigation is going to encourage at all.

When Should You Choose A Mega Menu For Your Site?

There are some instances where the mega menu can improve your website experience and serve useful addition for your site:

1. When Your User Is Expecting A Mega Menu

A lot of retail companies today are using the mega menu. But it might work for them, but not for you. The users might be accustomed to seeing a mega menu and using it to navigate the department store. It puts some pressure on you to gain a competitive edge. Check if you cater to many products.

 2. When A Drop-Down Menu Would Be Too Large

If the drop-down menu or a series of it would contain many options that would detract from UX. According to a study of Jakob Nielsen and Angie Li did a study on the larger navigation menu. The findings of the study confirmed that the mega menu enhances UX compared to the drop-down menu. It can be said that it helps you divide much content and easily browse through categories and sub-categories.

Mega Menu Magento 2 Static Width

In simple words, if the site needs to have many elements in the navigation menu, it helps enhance the user experience. However, the mega menu must be designed intuitively. And that it uses icons, colors, and text effects to improve their experience further.

3. When Designing The Menu To Enhance The Site

Sometimes the mega menu might serve right to add more than just text links to your website. Many mega menus use it to link different texts and add more sub-categories and products to the essential products. It acts as links along with the text overlaying them.

It improves the user experience to encourage visitor engagement and make the mega menu more functional. Also, it enhances the design and helps meet sales objectives.

Also Read: Best Magento 2 Extensions To Expand Customer Database

When Should You Not Choose A Mega Menu For Your Site?

There is a time when the mega menu would not be a solution. Here are some instances.

1. When You Don’t Have Lots Of Links

If your site doesn’t have hundreds of pages, then the mega menu will be just added for its sake. For example, if you are a small company, the mega menu will not be a solution to your needs. A mega menu will confuse the visitors and will probably look empty too.

Suppose you are still keen on using the mega menu. In that case, you can go for a combination of a mega menu and a standard drop-down menu, as Envato Tuts+ uses. The site would not have many links for those sections, and a standard drop-down menu would suffice.

2. When You Have Too Many Links On The Home Page

If your homepage is nothing but a page full of links to subpages, don’t use the mega menu. A mega menu would take away all the thunder of the website. Once the menu is further expanded, the navigation panel would also consist of the product links. This means don’t use a mega menu if not necessary. Your goal is to improve your user experience, not to satisfy users.

3. When You Want Traffic On A Specific Page Of The Website

If your site deals only in one or two products or services, it is better that you go for the drop-down menu rather than the mega menu. Your objective of building a site is clear, and the mega menu doesn’t fit in. You may also have a banner redirecting the people on the homepage visiting a landing page.

Keeping things minimal is suggested in these cases. A mega menu will give visitors too many options, and thus they might not come on the page you want them to. Keeping navigation minimal can be achieved through a drop-down menu and focus on funneling visitors onto your landing page.

4. On Mobile

Mega menus are not legible on small screens such as smartphones. To make it work, you have to either make the links tiny, which means people would not even be able to tap on it. It just downright messes with the user experience as they will not be able to use scrolling or tapping. Combing a mega menu can be confusing. Thus, it isn’t easy to know where the mega menu ends and the page content.

It is better to use a burger menu and a visible menu to tap on a symbol. It looks sleek and an excellent choice for websites with many links and want to improve your users’ website experience.

Bonus Tip

The mega menu helps you in showcasing your content dynamically. And thus, if you think it would work for your website and improve user experience, choose this Magento 2 Mega Menu extension. The extension allows you to display your content in categories and sub-categories, meanwhile dividing it into multiple columns, drop-down menus, and more. It can also help you promote items, banners, and clips right in the mega menu.

Mega Menu Magento 2 Full Width

Using Solwin Infotech Mega Menu Magento 2 extension, you can create different menus types for your website. It allows you to customize the menu as per the width, using the full width or static width for top-level categories, with easy styling without editing CSS from the backend. It also allows you to highlight products that the admin wants to display with the offers using labels.

The flexible to configure plugin helps you in styling the menu and manage the content shown over mobile and other devices. Just set the menu option for the category in the backend and select the menu type. One of the most significant advantages of the plugin is that it doesn’t affect the site speed.

Exceptional features of mega menu Magento 2 extension are:

– Support multi-store environment

– Allows you to change the content in the menu in the top, right, left, and bottom using WYSIWYG editor

– Showcase the mega menu with multiple options.

– Customize the style of the menu without the code skills.

– Plugin is compatible with : CE 2.1x – 2.2x – 2.3x- 2.4x