8 Sites with Excellent jQuery Navigation

WRITTEN BY

Zach Dunn

Zach is the Co-Founder and Director of Front End Development at One Mighty Roar in Boston, Massachusetts.

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8 Sites with Excellent jQuery Navigation

This is a gallery of sites that use jQuery to make the navigation clean, sharp, and elegant. These sites use the framework to do more than just add gratuitous effects.

Even though I’m a huge fan of Actionscript, Flex, and Flash in general, I love when navigations can keep usability while achieving fluid animation. A couple of these are so fluid you may forget it’s not Flash.

8. MacHeist Loot

http://www.macheist.com/loot/
Correction: This one is actually mooTools, and snuck into the wrong post. Sorry for any confusion. Thanks for the tip Chris Raymond!

This list was the quick result of bookmarks I’ve had for sometime. Have I missed any other mind blowing navigation like Carrot Creatives that deserve a shout out? Share in the comments.

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93 Comments 18 Mentions

jayz Author Editor
excellent, i hope i can make like or better like that..
thx for your information

January 3, 2009 · Reply
Online hry Author Editor
Great list!

January 3, 2009 · Reply
Joe McCann Author Editor
Wow, Carrot Creative…11 Megabyte home page, page weight! Ouch…

January 3, 2009 · Reply
Zach Dunn Author Editor
@Joe McCann
Nice observation, I hadn’t noticed that before. I guess that shows you the downsides to having your website one giant page of content with scrolling. God bless their servers.

January 3, 2009 · Reply
- sven Author Editor
  Hi. I get the looking at the page source for jquery being loaded or not but how do you see the size of the page. i.e finding that creativecarrot.com has an 11mb page?
  
  January 11, 2011 · Reply
  - ray Author Editor
    a u ok?
    
    June 3, 2011 ·
- Matt C Author Editor
  But you could load parts of it with AJAX (via jQuery) when it is needed. That way you still get those transitions without loading all the data at once ;)
  
  April 1, 2011 · Reply
Werehamster Author Editor
Check out http://thinkav.co.nz/.
The best effect is the color fade on the page transition arrow (it took me a while to figure out how to achieve it). All written in jQuery and the entire site degrades nicely if javascript is turned off, or your browser is too old to handle it.

January 3, 2009 · Reply
Gerhard Author Editor
jQuery is hot, the sites you mention, too! ;-)
And in the times of broadband internet access, who cares about a few MegaByte, Joe?

Thanks for this entry.

By the way: How did you notice, that these sites use jQuery?

January 3, 2009 · Reply
- Zach Dunn Author Editor
  @Gerhard
  
  It’s more of a server strain than a loading issue with large page sizes. Also, you can look into the source code of a page to see that jQuery is being loaded. Try it out!
  
  January 3, 2009 · Reply
KrazyCeltic Author Editor
Unfortunately some of the sites, such as Aviary’s website, were not progressively enhanced. When javascript is disabled in the browser, the primary horizontal menu does not expand, which is not really much of a problem, but then the pictoral tabbed navigation in the middle of the main page does not perform any action at all when clicked.

January 3, 2009 · Reply
Josh S Author Editor
I would definitely nominate clarklab’s Quicktab theme for WordPress, which easily produces single page marketing sites with jquery navingation. Here’s a great example: http://50pctoff.com

January 4, 2009 · Reply
kiran Author Editor
Really Awesome….

January 4, 2009 · Reply
ako Author Editor
Impressive stuff, jquery is mandatory knowledge for web developers these days…

January 4, 2009 · Reply
Peter Author Editor
@Joe McCann: Here in sweden i got 1 Gigabit internet connection. So if a site is 10,20 or 100 MB, i don´t care for i got real broadband! LOL

January 4, 2009 · Reply
pixeline Author Editor
this interactive barcode image gallery is also made entirely in jquery: http://www.lisapram.com

January 4, 2009 · Reply
Víctor Author Editor
Great list!!
Check out http://wpesp.com

January 4, 2009 · Reply
Chris Raymond Author Editor
MacHeist does not seem to be using jquery from what I can see–mootools. Or maybe I am looking at source code of a different page?

January 5, 2009 · Reply
- Zach Dunn Author Editor
  @Chris Raymond
  
  You appear to be absolutely right. When I was gathering sites for this gallery I made two different sets. One for jQuery and then another one for a mooTools showcase to follow. This one has apparently snuck into the wrong party! Sorry for any confusion.
  
  January 5, 2009 · Reply
Tiffany Author Editor
This list is great. I am amazed how far the web has come. I had thought some of these were only possible in huge swfs. Thanks for compiling.

January 6, 2009 · Reply
James Author Editor
Almost all prevent the user from using the back button and many involved mystery meat navigation. They might look/act cool, but whatever happened to usability?

January 13, 2009 · Reply
Zach Dunn Author Editor
@James – I’m just as much an advocate to usability, but I’ll also admit that some of the best examples in creativity are not necessarily great representatives of this. I rounded these up as an example of what can be accomplished using jQuery. Usability, like most components of web design, can be implemented as needed by the web designer/developer as well.

January 13, 2009 · Reply
Not Good Design Author Editor
Almost NONE of these pages WORK in the LATEST Opera browser. Clicking on things on these pages have no effect in 50% of cases. If that’s a jQuery bug or just bad use of jQuery (or a mix of browser-specific hacks and jQuery on the sites), I don’t know. Whatever the cause, the pages alienate all Opera users.

January 23, 2009 · Reply
Bradley Holt Author Editor
Not as fancy as some of the stuff here, but still interesting IMHO – granted, it’s my company’s website ;-)

http://www.foundline.com/

There’s no Flash anywhere on the site, the menu and all animation effects are done with jQuery.

February 3, 2009 · Reply
Simple Author Editor
Wow, the websites are just amazing. Design is really impressive. How much would it have cost to design a site like this frens ?
Regards,
Simple

February 24, 2009 · Reply
Jono Author Editor
Wow cool, some left me speechless but if I just was speechless this would be an empty post…
I like the first one with page transitions.

March 16, 2009 · Reply
Adrian Author Editor
I like the site navigation of Red Crown Studio
If there is a tutorial how to implement this kind of navigation is great

April 2, 2009 · Reply
Roberto Author Editor
Very good picks. Love the Grooveshark Widgets one.

Thanks for sharing.

May 28, 2009 · Reply
wpdigger Author Editor
Really good and really interesting post. I expect (and other reader’s maybe :)) new useful posts from you!

wpdigger’s last blog post..Theme Membership Sites – Are those really useful

June 1, 2009 · Reply
Webagentur Author Editor
Thank you … this all has me very helped.

June 6, 2009 · Reply
Jad Graphics Author Editor
Great examples here of excellent jquery menus. I really like your website, and I believe that you are doing an excellent job.

Jad Graphics’s last blog post..Great Quotes on Creativity and Design

June 10, 2009 · Reply
COOL Author Editor
Looks very interesting. Thanks for sharing..
http://www.mpos.net/s/p4.asp

July 3, 2009 · Reply
- Janesa Author Editor
  Superb inforatmion here, ol’e chap; keep burning the midnight oil.
  
  September 21, 2011 · Reply
sascha Author Editor
We also build up a nice navigation with jQuery and an unsorted list. Maybe someone like it: http://brotherskorth.com/index.php?id=referenzen

November 6, 2009 · Reply
takien Author Editor
thanks for the list,
I am still learning jQuery

November 29, 2009 · Reply
Bockerl Author Editor
Wow, this is very cool and I can that good needed.

December 17, 2009 · Reply
Steve Costello Author Editor
I have to agree with some of the opinions regarding this list… most of these score pretty low on the usability scale, as well as some other scales. For instance, as has already been noted, the 11MB load on Carrot Creative. That isn’t creative… that is a lot of fail.

The usage of words like “excellent” and “awesome” has become so diluted, it is hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. Most of these examples are chaff. Granted, some might be pretty… but being pretty does not make it excellent.

IMHO, for a navigation system to be described as “excellent,” it needs to satisfy the following (and not necessarily in this order… but ALL of the following):

* it should be attractive
* it should be functional
* it should not leave the user guessing (mystery meat navigation)
* it should be accessible (I shudder to think what any of these look like on a screen reader or other device used to aid those that are disadvantaged in some way)
* it should not break the browser (the back button should be fully usable)
* it should be comprehensive (the user should not have to click more than 2 or 3 times to get where they are trying to go)

I’m sure there are more, but those are off the top of my head. Most of the sites fail at nearly all of these basic conditions.

(Note: While all of these sites may have “excellent” design, I am speaking strictly about their navigation.)

1.) Carrot: There is so much wrong with this site, I don’t even know where to start. Not accessible. Not bookmark-able. Breaks the browser. And the navigation system forces the user, who may be sitting in an Internet cafe in Thailand, to download the ENTIRE 11MB. Inexcusable. Their “director of user experience” should pick up a book or two about UX. In addition, their site does not do much for SEO at all.

2.) Grooveshark Widgets: Not sure what about the nav on this site is all that excellent. It looks fine, and accomplishes much of what it needs to. But the site itself is fairly small… three or four pages. Now, if you are talking about their FORM design (to create their widgets), that’s great. But the nav? It is perfectly capable and great looking, don’t get me wrong. For navigation to be called “excellent,” I would think it needs to solve a more complex navigational solution than 3 or 4 pages.

3.) Aviary – This is much better, but just misses the mark. It solves a complex navigation solution. Although the site requires JS to actually work, and the nav requires it to work fully, you are still able to navigate the site. the nav is designed to work well with any SEO optimizations. It needs some help as far as accessibility is concerned, however, so it misses the mark on “excellence.”

4.)WP Coder – Another site that forces the client to essentially load the entire site. Check out the source code. In addition, SEO goes right out the window. And certain links open new tabs in the browser without any indication that they do so… really annoying. The nav itself is not accessible.

5.) Dempsey – Not accessible. Not optimized for SEO. Can’t tell what links I’ve already visited. Can’t tell at a glance what section of the site I’m on. It’s a fine site, don’t get me wrong. But the navigation itself isn’t “excellent.”

6.) Bright Creative – Nice from a design perspective, not bad navigation, and a passing grade for accessibility. But not “excellent” navigation.

7.) Red Crown – Again, nice from a design perspective, but there really isn’t much to navigate here. It’s one page with a gallery. At least the gallery images load dynamically. But “excellent” navigation?

8.) MacHeist – Sorry, but I am completely missing the excellence in navigation here. Competent, for sure. It gets the job done. But the site itself is fairly simple… there isn’t much to navigate.

TL;DR – These sites may be pretty to look at. There may have been a lot of thought put into the look and feel. But none of them really qualify as “excellent” navigation if you /strictly/ look at their navigation.

January 19, 2010 · Reply
Surftipps Author Editor
Well done, good choise. This is really helpful

January 28, 2010 · Reply
ooty Author Editor
good collection thanks

March 7, 2010 · Reply
Gökhan Pur Author Editor
thanks all )

March 12, 2010 · Reply
Indonesia Forum Author Editor
thanks for the list..
really help for newbies like me.. :)

August 8, 2010 · Reply
Richard Author Editor
pls can i get a very good navigation sorftware in my phone. Nokia 6760i

September 22, 2010 · Reply
Düzce Author Editor
Thank you … this all has me very helped

September 22, 2010 · Reply
Ripan Author Editor
here’s a very good website jquery – http://www.ripansekhon.co.cc

October 8, 2010 · Reply
chat Author Editor
Really Awesome….

October 11, 2010 · Reply
Chat Author Editor
This is much better, but just misses the mark. It solves a complex navigation solution. Although the site requires JS to actually work, and the nav requires it to work fully, you are still able to navigate the site. the nav is designed to work well with any SEO optimizations. It needs some help as far as accessibility is concerned, however, so it misses the mark on “excellence.”

October 15, 2010 · Reply
Anoesj Author Editor
I like my own website a lot more than many of these websites here..

October 15, 2010 · Reply
Chat Author Editor
Sorry, but I am completely missing the excellence in navigation here. Competent, for sure. It gets the job done. But the site itself is fairly simple… there isn’t much to navigate

October 18, 2010 · Reply
turkchat Author Editor
Fine was a work and full-time. Thank you.Thanks a lot for this beautiful post

October 30, 2010 · Reply
Chat Author Editor
Hi world. Thanks.

November 6, 2010 · Reply
Ask Siirleri Author Editor
Sorry, but I am completely missing the excellence in navigation here

November 18, 2010 · Reply
Ahmed Shaker Author Editor
Great collection, I love the one in macheist.com/loot/, here is another example using beautiful jQuery in web design http://ashaker.com Carousel slider and CSS-Dock :)

November 21, 2010 · Reply
sohbet Author Editor
The best effect is the color fade on the page transition arrow (it took me a while to figure out how to achieve it). All written in jQuery and the entire site degrades nicely if javascript is turned off, or your browser is too old to handle it…

December 5, 2010 · Reply
sohbet Author Editor
thanks for this blog and nice post

December 8, 2010 · Reply
sohbet Author Editor
good collection thanks

December 8, 2010 · Reply
sohbet Author Editor
Wow, the websites are just amazing. Design is really impressive. How much would it have cost to design a site like this frens ?

December 8, 2010 · Reply
chat Author Editor
Fine was a work and full-time. Thank you.Thanks a lot for this beautiful post

December 12, 2010 · Reply
- Margery Author Editor
  You have more useful info than the Britsih had colonies pre-WWII.
  
  September 20, 2011 · Reply
burhan Author Editor
nice..thanks..

December 27, 2010 · Reply
güncel blog Author Editor
thanks, very good website.

February 15, 2011 · Reply
Binny Author Editor
Good work done..We students get good ideas by such work..

March 3, 2011 · Reply
kaprisli Author Editor
thank you very macht blog

March 8, 2011 · Reply
depresiyon test Author Editor
Thanks a lot for this amazing article

April 5, 2011 · Reply
Akrostiş şiir Author Editor
Akrostiş şiir, for thanks for this

April 5, 2011 · Reply
Oliyide Oluwafemi John Author Editor
Cool samples……

April 26, 2011 · Reply
mersin emlak Author Editor
Good collection thanks…

May 10, 2011 · Reply
nadeem Author Editor
nice compillation.!!! .. i want to know to know how to use the effect of these sites into my website project!!!!

May 11, 2011 · Reply
Mike at Computer Lagging Author Editor
I have been wanting some help with JQuery. Thanks for the help, mike

June 10, 2011 · Reply
tavoli Author Editor
Thank’s man, now i can finish my site

July 6, 2011 · Reply
troto Author Editor
Sheeesh, tnx a lot for your lessons.

July 17, 2011 · Reply
Brian Wiltshire Author Editor
Awesome, Thanks for the share, I am busy with a jquery nav now and this was nice to read !

August 26, 2011 · Reply
Silvi Author Editor
great for inspiration

August 29, 2011 · Reply
konteyner Author Editor
That are frequently updated, keeping up-to-date with the most recent products, the top deals, and helpful information on products and services.

September 6, 2011 · Reply
pembe maske Author Editor
thank you very macht blog

September 19, 2011 · Reply
allen Author Editor
this is nice!

October 14, 2011 · Reply
chat odasi Author Editor
hei Ilike it very much, I hope you will soon update your work!thanks for sharing.

October 14, 2011 · Reply
Andrew Author Editor
Nice one, keep it up! I want to see MORE!

November 30, 2011 · Reply
chat Author Editor
I like the first one with page transitions God bless their servers

December 14, 2011 · Reply
bütün gazeteler Author Editor
We students get good ideas by such work..

December 15, 2011 · Reply
Kenny Author Editor
Yeah… thanks for sharing this nice list of jQuery showcase. Good job!

February 9, 2012 · Reply
Elvis Nevins Author Editor
I don’t even know how I ended up here, but I thought this post was great. I don’t know who you are but definitely you are going to a famous blogger if you aren’t already ;) Cheers!

March 22, 2012 · Reply
Inspirational Quotes Author Editor
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March 26, 2012 · Reply
Louis Vuitton Damier Ebene Canvas Graphite Travel Ebony N41140 Author Editor
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March 26, 2012 · Reply
patio furniture Author Editor
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March 29, 2012 · Reply
Mersin Emlak Author Editor
Grooveshark’s site is my fav. I also like the red crown studio’s from a usability perspective. Thank you very much for sharing.

July 21, 2012 · Reply
Mersin Emlak Bul Author Editor
Thanks for sharing. this is nice!

September 30, 2012 · Reply
Adana Emlak Author Editor
this is nice.. Good work done.

October 3, 2012 · Reply
Chat Author Editor
Superrrrrrrrrrrrrr….

November 11, 2012 · Reply
Chat Author Editor
Thanxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

November 11, 2012 · Reply
Sohbet Author Editor
Weri Goodddddd….

November 11, 2012 · Reply
Gaziantep Emlak Author Editor
thanks for sharing this nice list of jQuery showcase. Good job!

November 30, 2012 · Reply
Taşımacılık Author Editor
thank you very macht blog

January 29, 2013 · Reply
canlı tv Author Editor
thanks for article.. good content.

February 7, 2013 · Reply