Today, responsive websites have become a standard for attaining a unique niche in the web world. There's a good majority of people which is switching from desktop devices to smartphones and tablets in order to access multiple websites available over the internet. In-line with the growing usage of mobile technology, it becomes imperative to optimize your website for mobile devices. A website which renders an easy navigation on mobile devices is the one which is capable of grabbing the attention of targeted customers. Being regarded as one of the vital elements in responsive design, mobile navigation is worth investing your time and efforts. This post will make you familiar with some popular responsive/mobile navigation trends which can take your website to a new level of success.
Responsive Navigation menus- A look at their types
Responsive retina-friendly menu
As an out-of-the-box solution for websites and blogs with minimal navigation elements, the responsive
retina-friendly menu allows you to use icon fonts by ditching the use of pure graphical icons. Websites which include a responsive retina-friendly menu respond differently on smartphones and tablets. While on a smartphone, the menu is being extended via a simple click, in case of a tablet, it is being showcased as a list of layered menu items( either as one above the other or in a side-by-side format).
Multi-level Push menu
The
Multi-level push menu serves as a brilliant add-on for a website that needs to gather visitors from the smartphone world. This is a menu which opens by pushing the website content towards the right hand side. Plus, there is a multi-level functionality which allows endless nesting of different navigation elements. All the levels within the menu have been designed keeping the user-friendly parameter in mind. The size of menu items has been kept large enough so as to be easily accessible even by a person who's using his/her smartphone/tablet with gloves on.
You can check
multi-level push menu plugin for WordPress here. This multi level push menu is for WP Admin only. You'll need to use admin credentials given
on this page to login to Dashboard and only then you can see the demo.
The Pull Down menu
As one of the most
interesting mobile navigation trends, the Pull Down menu has been impressing the website visitors on an instant basis. A website equipped with a Pull Down Menu allows the users to choose different menu items by simply pulling down the menu icon to a desired level. Once the icon is released, the menu items gets loaded on the web page.
Responsive Full width tabs
Serving as a brilliant solution for
responsive websites with fewer navigation items, Responsive Full width tabs can be conveniently operated even while wearing gloves. The basic purpose of having a responsive full-width tab is to display just the icons for mobile view, while allowing the text to appear in the best possible format.
Responsive multi-level menu
This is basically a space-saving
drop-down menu comprising of subtle effects. The sub-menu of Responsive multi-level menu will slide and fade in from the right while the previous level would be rotating slightly and eventually disappearing in the background. Having fetched its idea from an old mobile navigation trend, the Responsive multi-level menu is equipped with some interesting effects. There is a good collection of five amazingly rich effects for you to choose from.
Google Nexus Website Menu
Serving as an
excellent navigation menu for smartphones and tablets with varied screen resolutions, the
Google Nexus Website menu is a must-have for every
mobile-friendly website. You can simply tap on the menu item(s) provided within the upper left corner and the menu will slide out a bit. Also, hovering over one of the menu items will display the full list of menu.
Finally, let's have a look at some of the most popular jQuery plugins which work as the best match for achieving responsive navigation menus
Trunk.js
When it comes to
designing responsive navigation, nothing can work better than
Trunk.js. Custom-made for achieving mobile navigation within websites with lots of navigation items, Trunk.js is a responsive web solution you can't afford to miss for sure. This lightweight plugin doesn't occupy a lot of space on your site, thereby preventing your site from loading slowly.
jQuery Navobile
This is a jQuery plugin which makes mobile navigation easy. jQuery Navobile uses CSS for applying multiple CSS3 translations, fixing the position of nav and also for mobile device detection. This jQuery plugin comes with a few events that you can bind to. The same are explained below:
- navobile:open- this event is fired when navobile is hidden and navigation cta is tapped
- navobile:opened- this event is fired when navobile is fully open
- navobile:close- this event is fired when navigation cta has been tapped and navobile is visible
- navobile:closes- this event is fired when navobile has been fully closed
So, that's it for now!
Wrapping Up
Well-implemented responsive menus can easily add a unique tint of professionalism into a plain, dull website. With an extraordinarily designed navigation, you can not only gather more visitors for your site but even keep them engaged to your web portal for a much longer duration of time.
Contributor: Addison Cohen is a mobile app developer working with Appsted Ltd, the leading iPhone application development service provider which delivers most comprehensive mobile application solutions. He loves sharing latest information on mobile technologies like iOS, Android development processes.Labels: Responsive, Trends, Web Design
