ROLL_OVER or CLICK - your opinion wanted!

[Markstar]

Hi,
I've gone through a lot of trouble to create my own expanding side menu with Flash, but now that I am almost done I am not sure that ROLL_OVER is the way to go. :happysad:

The first link is the menu with ROLL_OVER, the second one requires you to actually click on the items:
This is the example with ROLL_OVER...
...and in this example you have to click to activate the submenus.

Which one do you think is better? :dunno:

Thank you in advance for your input!

[Zubair]

I think ROLL_OVER is the better option.

You should use this

[Markstar]

Argh, hold on... I have not even uploaded the two examples yet!

[Mr. DOS]

The rollover is better, but both menus take far too long to start up. Get rid of the animation and have the items appear as soon as the menu is loaded. If you must, give the items a half-second fade-in animation.

--- Mr. DOS

[leafypiggy]

Or, don't use flash and instead use just plain old HTML, CSS, and JS.

[earthinc]

I read a study about a year ago on a website that I stumbleupponed. The average consensus is that people generally like to click. People like to be in charge of physically making things happen, and with rollover, sometimes things like menus just get in the way by moving your mouse. It was a large poll, and clicks beat rollovers by thousands of votes. Sorry, don't remember the website or I'd show you.

[galacticgraphix]

I think the rollovers are more fun! Everyone likes fun!

[Markstar]

Thanks you guys so far for your input!!!

The vote is 50/50 right now - I really don't know what to do. I agree that the rollover is more fun, but otoh I think it is annoying that if you go down, your mouse isn't really on the next item anymore (because the previouse element was closed and the elements moved up).

@leafypiggy: I'm also going to give users the option to use a pure HTML/CSS version.


I'm new to Flash, so there are some things I have yet to figure out. For example, I would like to be able to play the "intro" animation only when users come from outside. If they just move within my site, I would like to skip that "buildup" animation. ;)

[ShadowmasterX]

Click is better since you dont get annoyed when you are trying to do something else and it just pops up and you have to waste time moving your cursor time and time again

[adamparkzer]

I like the click menu better because it doesn't retract if you accidentally move your mouse out of the menu options.