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!
When I'm working on homebrew stuff or supplying an NPC with spells I will use the school lists more often than the general search.
Fair enough. At the very least it may help people to learn which schools spells belong to.
The Classes list under Game Rules all have links that point to that class's spells when they should point to the class details page. The actual Spells list is fine.
Example: Game Rules > Classes > Barbarian points to "https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells/class/barbarian" when it should point to "https://www.dndbeyond.com/classes/barbarian"
Tested on Firefox, Chrome, and Edge (never used to access dndbeyond)
The "Classes" links are broken as of today. All of them lead to a spell list, even for classes that don't have a spell list!
Thanks for pointing it out - this was addressed soon after (might have taken a little bit for cache to break).
Hi,
I'm not sure how much testing has been done on Edge and IE browsers. But the new menu's do not seem to work there. I'm using a company computer with no control of these browsers, their updates or settings during my lunch hour.
https://1drv.ms/u/s!AjFiuKa3-ytahfoBsyiG5rwEyoF2Xw
Above is the screenshot on how it looks on the Edge browser.
The next iteration of Edge will be Chromium based so not much point developing for the current Edge.
Edge looks fine to us. Can you share what version you're using?
Microsoft Edge 40.15063.674.0
Microsoft EdgeHTML 15.15063
Having the similar issues on Internet Explorer 11
Version: 11.1631.15063.0
Update Versions: 11.0.110 (KB4486474)
I love this new menu. Looks great!
Please keep working on the app as dnd beyond offline would be absolutely amazing and would really bring together the whole idea of dnd beyond.
Is there any way to switch it back to the previous interface? I find this one more difficult to navigate.
Hey was just wondering how to log out on mobile with the update