There are some UI issues with nav-menus.php that have been around for a while (like tabs being confusing for managing multiple menus).



Knowing this, we ran a couple of ​menus-based user tests hoping to find additional ideas for improvements.



Here's a list of potential enhancements that I'd like to test for 3.6:



A) Managing menus as tabs can be confusing. Sometimes users think the tabs represent the menu itself, and they'll create multiple menus by mistake (thinking the tabs represent menu items). Tabs also pose a problem, after you get 10+ menus. I'd like to test the idea of removing the tabs altogether. My thought was to add a "add menu" link next to the header (similar to other areas of the admin), and move menu selection to a drop down select box.



B) In the "add new menu" view, new users get confused as to what they are supposed to do. Both of the users we tested wanted to click the "Create Menu" button first (not noticing the menu name field). I'd like to test adding focus to the menu name field, and moving the "Create Menu" button closer to the name field (just for this add new screen).



C) The "theme locations" section appears to be semi-confusing to users. I'd like to test moving the functionality to the bottom of the page, and changing the formatting, so that it no longer matches the formatting of the rest of the left column, and perhaps changing the wording a bit.



D) I'd like to add an intro sentence which explains that menus can be used as custom navigation within your theme (we'd link to "theme locations" at the bottom of the page), or within widgets (adding a link to widgets). It will just be a quick, short sentence to introduce the concept of menus, while at the same time exposing the fact that menus can be used in widgets.



E) There's a lot of wasted space in the left column. Moving "theme locations" to the bottom of the page will free up a little space, but I'd like to see if there is anything else we can do to eliminate the need to scroll. I'd like to test changing the left column to an accordion (using jQuery UI). Thus eliminating a bunch of padding, and showing only one menu items options at a time. We'll test it and see how it performs.



F) When a user saves a change to "theme locations" it would be nice to give them a link to preview their new menu.



Once we complete some patches, we'll test these enhancements by re-running more users through the same set of user tests.

