How to get secondary drop down menu item to be clickable

[Bliss99]

I have a drop down menu, using the IPS drop down menu feature.

It goes like this and my question is, how do I make the main and sub menu's clickable when they are set to be a drop down menu (PS, CJ Menu does not work for the theme I am using).

CHAPTERS (main, set as a drop down menu - how to make it clickable?)

     CITY (sub, set as a drop down menu - how to make it clickable?)
            
                 EVENT (last drop down menu item, actually goes to a link via "external link")

 

Thank you!

 

[opentype]

I don’t understand the question. Every drop-down menu is “clickable” by default. It’s how you reveal the menu entries of the menu. 

[Bliss99]

7 hours ago, opentype said:

I don’t understand the question. Every drop-down menu is “clickable” by default. It’s how you reveal the menu entries of the menu. 

See screenshot

the word CHAPTERS is a drop down menu item - when you click on it, I'd love it to go to a CHAPTERS page but there's no place to control that, IPS menu doesn't give you the option for the parent to be a usable link.

Portland is under chapters in the drop down menu, and is set to be it's own drop down menu in IPS, and doesn't allow for clicking on the word PORTLAND to go anywhere other than open up the next child menu. I would like the word PORTLAND to go to a landing page, but there's no place to control that.

Does that make more sense?

[opentype]

1 hour ago, Blisslandia said:

See screenshot

the word CHAPTERS is a drop down menu item - when you click on it, I'd love it to go to a CHAPTERS page but there's no place to control that …

Yes, because that makes no sense. The click is already “used up” for opening the drop-down menu. You can’t use that as link as well and take people to a page when they just want to open the menu. It cannot work. 

My recommendation: Don’t put drop-down menus on the main navigation level. They make much more sense in the secondary navigation if you need them. 

[Morgin]

11 hours ago, opentype said:

Yes, because that makes no sense. The click is already “used up” for opening the drop-down menu. You can’t use that as link as well and take people to a page when they just want to open the menu. It cannot work. 

My recommendation: Don’t put drop-down menus on the main navigation level. They make much more sense in the secondary navigation if you need them. 

This isn’t entirely true. Lots of sites use a faux double click where click #1 opens the menu and click #2 loads a landing page. 

https://www.nngroup.com/articles/split-buttons-navigation/

example 3 at the bottom. 

[opentype]

Yes, it’s technically possible to work around the problem and offer two different actions for the same button, but the IPS menu doesn’t work like that and so there are no settings to achieve it. And even the article you linked has the message/title “Don’t Use Split Buttons for Navigation Menus”. ;-) Which is my point as well.

From the article ☞ 

Quote

this solution has some flaws:

Lack of discoverability: Users may not realize that they can access the category landing page by tapping again on the same primary category.

Conflict with another touchscreen pattern: Tapping the label of an open menu usually closes the menu. Users will be upset if, instead of dismissing the menu, they will need to wait for the site to load a category landing page that they don’t want.

 

[Bliss99]

Thank you both for your input and feedback. It's good to see things from many angles.

[Morgin]

15 hours ago, opentype said:

Yes, it’s technically possible to work around the problem and offer two different actions for the same button, but the IPS menu doesn’t work like that and so there are no settings to achieve it. And even the article you linked has the message/title “Don’t Use Split Buttons for Navigation Menus”. ;-) Which is my point as well.

From the article ☞ 

 

I agree with those criticisms, yet find myself being conditioned by a lot of my favourite sites to get used to the double tap. Interesting stuff regardless!