gdgt

The main nav is a pretty challenging aspect of any site because it often plays a pivotal role in a large number of key needs: anchoring the site's branding, providing a tacit mission statement and primary call to action (i.e. nav items), as well serving site search and user acquisition (among other things). We've put our nav through numerous tweaks and redesigns over the years (anyone remember the giant monolithic black nav we launched with?) and today we're rolling out the newest version, which I'm really excited about.

For the last few months we've feverishly debated the core interaction and navigation principles that will take gdgt into the future -- and that will make possible some of the awesome new features we'll be rolling out in 2012. The new nav is the result of a lot of iteration and a not so small amount of long-term soul-searching about what gdgt should be when it grows up (which is part of the reason why a few weeks ago we consolidated our "gadgets" section into the reviews section). This new nav also happens to be our first static (i.e. non-scrolling) navigation, which is pretty neat.

What's it mean for you? Well, now you'll have absurdly easy access to posting a review, question, or discussion from anywhere on the site, as well as a quick way to check your gdgt RP throughout the day, and improved search results with product icons (as we rolled out on the reviews page a few weeks back). In the future we'll also be working to do stuff like fit in activity alerts so you can get the latest updates on your reviews and threads as you use the site.

Props to Mike and Aaron who spearheaded this project. We'd love to know what you think!