Cool Web Dropdown Menus

One of the most compelling parts of moving to the Popfly team for me was the opportunity to develop my web design and development skills. I (just like every one of you, I presume) have been hacking around with various web technologies for the better part of a decade, but I never had the opportunity to become a “professional” web developer. Sure, I built my senior project in college using ASP.NET, and I’ve used PHP, Rails and other technologies for various small projects, but I’ve never had a good reason to get really proficient before.

As I drag myself up to speed, I thought I’d share some of the cooler components I’ve run into, such as the Son of Suckerfish dropdown menu. Originally featured in an article on A List Apart, Son of Suckerfish (henceforth SoS) offers you the ability to easily transform your average unordered list into a lean, mean multi-level-supporting menu. Admittedly, I think that using multi-level dropdowns as the primary navigation mechanism for your website is evil, but every tool has a time and place. Far be it from me to expect to dictate such terms.

What I love about techniques like the one described with SoS is the graceful degradation that can occur for users accessing the web through alternate means: be it a screen reader or a mobile phone. Enabling all of your possible users to access your content with greater ease can only help you in the end.