I’m noticing more and more horizontal navigations at the moment – mostly good ones!
My favourites are:
The 15belowproject which works particularly well with the sound on.
Uniqlo is another example, although it hurts my eyes a little!
Adidas have also made use of a similar nav for their new Originals site.
I think these examples work well because there is a reliance on images to navigate around rather than words. Particuarly Uniqlo and Adidas that are promoting a ‘look’ or style, it’s a nice way to achieve it without forcing people to think about what they’re looking for. Hovering over the left and right arrows is a simple and easily understood method of scrolling left and right.
I’ve also come across Simon Hoegsberg’s site for a photographic installation. He took photos of people walking across a bridge in Berlin from the same position for 2 weeks and displayed them end to end on a wall. This is a great way to replicate the wall effect online – although unconventional, using the thumbnails across the bottom to instigate the movement above feels intuitive.
Kotsego have a blog post on how to make unconventional navigations work and I’ve used a couple of their examples.
On the topic of unconventional navigations, I love the Beastie Boys website using a dial to turn content up and down without having to scroll. One day every site will have one đŸ™‚
Jen Williams 