The Ingenious Engineering Trick That Makes Amazon Menus Usable

Hysteresis + path prediction = slick UX.

Drop-down menus and submenus are a necessary evil of graphical user interfaces. For a site like Amazon, which forces the customer to manipulate an endless number of Matryoshka-doll-like text labels, it’s absolutely crucial to make this hierarchical navigation as easy and fluid as possible. How can you screw up a simple submenu? Oh, trust me, there are ways. If you’ve ever encountered what engineer Ben Kamens calls the “whack-a-mole” menu, you’ll know what I mean. Here’s his example: