Mega-Menus Gone Wrong

Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox for November 16 is now online at:
  > http://www.useit.com/alertbox/mega-menus-wrong.html

Summary:
Big 2-D drop-downs can facilitate site navigation - if they're properly
designed. Two examples illustrate some mega-menu usability pitfalls.

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Usability Week 2010/2011 conference

  * Boston: this week
  * Las Vegas: December 5-10
  * Dubai: January 16-20
  * New York City: February 7-11
  * Hong Kong: February 28-March 4

Full program:
  > http://www.nngroup.com/events

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KINECT IN LAS VEGAS

We will have one of the new Kinect systems at the Las Vegas conference, to
allow you to analyze this new interaction paradigm.

I almost wrote, "give you hands-on experience" but of course the point of
the Kinect is that it's completely hands-off: you don't touch any
controllers, but simply move around in a (hopefully) natural manner to
drive the UI.

This is gesture-based interaction far beyond the touchscreen designs we
analyze in the seminar on mobile apps:
  > http://www.nngroup.com/events/tutorials/mobile_apps.html

For Kinect-style hands-free interaction, we don't have any usability
guidelines yet. But I am sure that this interface style will have its own
usability issues. No technology is truly easy, no matter how much it's
promoted as "natural."

But we shall see. I'll look forward to hearing your comments on this
design in Vegas.