Are dropdowns in navbar bad UX (and should we remove this feature?)

[rufuspollock]

I notice that complex navbars with subitems is now very rare. Where you do have dropdowns it is more menu like (e.g. menu associated with your profile in many sites).

Instead people just show the options in long sidebar, see e.g. tailwindcss.com/docs or youtube.com

I note that tailwind who i look to on design stuff do not use dropdowns at all anywhere on their sites.

Some literature and discussion on this online suggestions these are not recommended now:

• https://www.nngroup.com/articles/does-user-annoyance-matter/ "Does User Annoyance Matter? Summary: Making users suffer a drop-down menu to enter state abbreviations is one of many small annoyances that add up to a less efficient, less pleasant user experience. It's worth fixing as many of these usability irritants as you can."
• https://neilpatel.com/blog/common-website-navigation-mistakes/ Drop down menus are bad for two reasons. Depending on how they’re programed, can be difficult for search engines to crawl. But there’s another, bigger reason… Drop down menus are annoying, according to usability studies from the NN Group. This is because as visitors, we move our eyes much faster than we move the mouse. When we move the mouse to a menu item, we’ve already decided to click…and then the drop down gives us more options. It’s a moment of friction in our minds as visitors.

Examples

Tailwind CSS

https://tailwindcss.com just has a very simple navbar and then introduces a sidebar when more navigation is needed e.g. in https://tailwindcss.com/docs/installation

Youtube just has a long sidebar menu

which can be compressed in default case

Frog design

No dropdowns!

IDEO

No menu at all with accordion (like mobile) with everything displayed in layover