February 25, 2019
Hello everyone!
The first round of improvements to site navigation we have been talking about are now live - you will see a "mega menu" on desktop browsers.
Keep in mind that while some of the nav consolidation discussed below will be found in mobile/tablet resolutions, a full overhaul of those menus will come in a later iteration.
With the mega menu, we have the following goals:
- Usability. This goal was our guiding star for these updates. The previous menu navigation structure became difficult and frustrating to use. It required fairly precise mouse pointer movements to navigate the numerous rows/columns, and we received considerable feedback that it was not easy enough to get where you wanted to go on the site. The mega menu should alleviate the need for precise pointer movement and be generally easier to read/absorb. Goals folding up into usability were simplicity, scalability, and visual appeal.
- Simplicity. The previous nav had multiple layers of nested selections that were overly complex, and our analytics demonstrated that the large majority of users were simply clicking on the "top level" selection anyway. The mega menu exposes those top level choices in an easier to consume manner that should help usability.
- Scalability. The complexity of the main nav menu really started to stand out as we got into 2019 (and beyond) planning for features. With what we saw, there was no reasonable way we could introduce the considerable amount of new functionality that we have targeted for the next several years unless we made some changes. The re-grouping and consolidation of some of the menu items you now see in the mega menu sets us up to be able to add in encounters, interactive maps, DM screen, and all the other additional features in a sensible way.
- Visual appeal. As with anything we do on D&D Beyond, we seek to provide a level of visual polish that makes using DDB a delight. The mega menu updates are no different.
Now I'll give a rundown of the new sections of the menu to hopefully ease everyone's transition:
Sources
The Sources menu contains all official D&D digital content, from the Player's Handbook to Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage. Each source is recognizable by cover, and be sure to try using your scroll wheel on the carousel to get to the book you need faster.
As we move forward, you will start to see that all D&D Beyond content and functionality will start to be grouped by these sources. For example, soon you will be able to click on the cover for Waterdeep: Dragon Heist to see not only the book's Table of Contents and links, but also all the listing or game rules information (including encounters once those are implemented) all in one place. This menu will also incorporate other types of products that D&D Beyond releases over time.
Game Rules
The Game Rules menu consolidates all the listings for game mechanics that were formerly in separate Characters, Spells, Magic Items, and Monsters menus. Here you'll see Races, Classes, Feats, Backgrounds, Spells, Magic Items, Equipment, and Monsters selections. This is the menu you use to reference official game mechanics - not the things you create from those mechanics (like your characters or campaigns, that's the Creations menu summarized below).
This menu will allow us to expand into things like Encounters and other potential (emphasize potential since these elements are currently in playtest and not published) mechanics like Sidekicks or Vehicles.
Creations
This menu collects all the things you or other players create from the game rules - like My Characters, My Campaigns, My Homebrew Collection, My Homebrew Creations, and the place to Browser & Create Homebrew content. This is the menu you use to find your stuff - the things you've made - or the stuff others have made.
This menu will also allow us to expand to some exciting new types of creations in the future, but we're not quite ready to talk about all that too much yet.
Tools
This menu will provide an easy place to find all the digital tools we provide now and in the future. Currently, you'll find the Character Builder and Twitch Extension.
The idea is this grouping will allow us to expand as we release the encounter builder, interactive maps, initiative/ combat tracker, DM screen, and more, and hopefully those will all be easy to find in the Tools menu.
Marketplace
This menu will have our Store and Subscriptions areas as it always has, but also the Redeem a Key page and an easier way to access your Order History.
We will also see this menu expand its options over time as we introduce other types of product offerings.
Media
This menu collects all of our original Articles content, as well as an easier way to find our new streamed content such as the (now) weekly Dev Updates, Heroes of the Vale, and Todd Talks. Clicking through to Articles also provides a portal to access all the posts in a particular article series - like the new Encounter of the Week.
Over time, we expect this section to also include other types of multi-media content, such as image galleries, desktop wallpapers, and some other exciting new opportunities we can't talk about yet.
Forums
This menu will continue to take you to our Forums - join in on the discussion, there's a huge, active community there!
Next Steps
While this first iteration should make things much easier on desktop, we will continue improvements for navigation in the near future:
- Mobile/tablet menu overhaul
- Accessibility updates to allow for better screen reader use/keyboard shortcuts
- Work to allow "hover" on desktop but "click" on tablet, even if resolutions are the same
As always, let us know if you have any feedback regarding the main nav changes in our D&D Beyond Feedback forum!
I was JUST wondering why there wasn’t a page that had all of the dev update videos on it, so many thanks for that!! It looks great!!
1 thing of note, there is a Critical Role page, but when you go to the DM Tips page from Articles, there’s a bunch of Critical Role recaps cluttering it up. Not sure if that was an oversight or intentional, but it seems like those would be on the CR page instead of DM Tips.
Everything else looks great that I’ve briefly checked out, great job Curse Team!!
Overall like it except Sources menu.. taking may way longer to find book/source I am looking for. was 2 clicks in old menu( if did not miss click). now takes me 4-5 clicks as sometimes scrolling to fast past source and need to scroll back. ver unwieldy un laptop with no scroll button/mouse. on desktop using scroll butoon makes me fly past what I am looking for.
Maybe split Rules / monster manual/ dm book from adventures. so that less items under 1 menu button?
I've shared a "Next Day" update summarizing our next steps here: https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/d-d-beyond-feedback/34115-mega-menu-feedback-review-and-next-steps?comment=1
Thanks!
Maybe I'm the only one, but I think it'd be nice if we could gift items from the Marketplace to other people.
The new CR articles (starting with Episode 47) actually take something from the episode and make a DM tips article out of it. The recap is just a brief synopsis (hidden under a spoiler cut) before the deep-dive into a piece of encounters or challenges. For example, episode 50 "recap" is about introducing guest characters, episode 47 is about underwater combat. :)
Yes!!! Very much agree with this!!!!
Oh snap! Thank you!
While further interface updates are on the table, any chance of making all long lists (spells, magic items, equipment, monsters) infinitely scrolling?
Out of curiosity, when you make a decision based on how analytics portray the "vast majority of users", do you split that out into "players who are DMs" and "players who do not DM a campaign on the platform"? I suspect there are behaviours, such as navigating to specific content, which are uncommon for regular players but important to a lot of DMs and if those different user requirements aren't split out, "what do most users do" might not reflect what an important subset of users do with the platform.
The top bar keeps disappearing for me after a few seconds, to be replaced with a white bar lacking buttons.
same on win10, chrome and edge
Love the update! It looks awesome and works pretty well in Chrome.. Haven't tried in other browsers..
MUUUUCH better sources view now! Thanks for the iteration!
Hey guys,
Would it be possible to pin sources into a priority position, or to customize to some extent how we access sources we have purchased? I like the look of what you have here, but I get click fatigue having to get though several panels of four in order to get to what I want.
Sources navigation is much better now! Would love to have similar UI for Races and Classes.
Even in the current design, the UI for Game Rules seems inconsistent in the overlay vs the Game Rules page.
In the Game Rules page, the first four items (all color-coded orange) are, logically enough, Races, Classes, Backgrounds, and Feats.
In the overlay, the two big items are (logically enough) Races and Classes, but then the next column is Monsters, Spells, and Magic Items, which separates the related character-building items, Backgrounds and feats.
Shouldn’t you put Backgrounds and Feats as 2-item column next to Classes, and put Equipment, Magic Items, Spells, and Monsters as a 4-item column?
Alternatively, maintaining the current layout, I can see putting Backgrounds, Feats, and Spells as a single column, since those are all choices that are intrinsic to the character.
On iPad, the right-hand expandable menu — the one accessed by tapping on the control with the three horizontal lines — is very useful for navigation. However, it only appears in portrait mode. In landscape, it can’t be accessed, and the drop-down menus from the desktop version of the site don’t work either, so naviagtion in landscape mode is significantly worse. Any chance this could be improved?
My ipad works perfectly fine in landscape mode...what model ipad do you have? Mine is a 1st gen iPad Pro, not sure if that matters.
Props on the latest update, I am super happy with this iteration after having a lot of reservations about the first revision.
Indeed. I like having my class breakdown single-clickable again!
I love how the Rules menu looks now, but, serious question, how often do people look up spells by school? Even specialist wizards would rarely do that?