Need design advice from someone who knows how to design properly (unlike me :)

[Leav]

Hi there!

I'm working on a design for my lab and I have a bit of a design problem:

1. go here: http://brml.technion.ac.il
2. try to navigate to Projects > Undergraduate > Snakes > Chanani & Elazar

how many times did the cursor go off the menu and you lost the whole navigation? 

I was thinking of having a mini menu showing just the children of the current page, but I couldnt integrate it into the design in any way I liked...

any suggestions?

how do you tackle extremely deep hierarchies?

I have another Idea, but I'm not sure if it is possible to implement it: if the menu had like a half second delay before disappearing that would help I think....

Thanks for your advice!

-Leav

p.s.
I changed the menu items of "Projects" and "Undergraduate" to section headers (so they are un-clickable) but if some design you have in mind entails them having a page so you can put a menu in them or something then i can bring the old setup of them having a page and being clickable... i'm more concerned about having a user friendly design!

[Nullig]

You could have a horizontal main menu at the top, with a vertical submenu on the side, which only shows the children of the current top menu selection.

Nullig

[Russ]

I think Nullig's idea is a good one, but I would try to flatten your structure a bit if you can. People get lost in deep nested structures and I would definitely be wanting some breadcrumb navigation as well. Also I'd try to avoid flyout menus - they are just annoying and not very accessible - even worse with deep nesting.

Russ