32. mystery meat navigation
“There’s nothing here but a bunch of images…?”
Links that don’t appear until the visitor rolls over something are known as mystery meat navigation and they’re about as appealing as the public school lunch entree. They hide the site’s content from the visitor and turn browsing into a game of Memory: “What was that link I saw over there…?” Links’ labels should be visible at all times.
Yes, this does mean that drop-down menus are also — generally! — a bad idea.
