OK, here's the situation: A reasonably simple website with a primary navigation menu including drop-down list of sublevels on hover. Each navigation level may have 3 - 6 sublevels below it, none more important than the other. For example see this mockup:
My question is: What should happen if the user Clicks on one of the primary navigation options (such as 'News') instead of just hovering over and choosing a sublevel?
My instinct tells me that I should allow a click of this navigation option; it's expected user behavior to be able to click navigation options. If clicked then a landing page of some sort will be present listing all the sublevels (latest news, blog posts, case studies'). However there is no content to add to this landing page other than presenting a list of links, which is pretty useless. I could pad it out by adding iconography and descriptions of the sublevels, but that's just content for the sake of it; does 'Latest News' really need a description in order to understand what it is?
If I don't include a landing page then clicking this primary navigation will have to open something but if I open the 'Latest News' page that risks the user not knowing about the other sections of the site.
(The landing page will be useful for breadcrumb navigation too, so I don't really want to do away with it).
Is my thinking that a landing page showing the list of sublevels actually useful even though there is no actual content to display, or is there a better alternative to go with?
Answer
I disagree with @Tony, and think that there should be a landing page for this, because, as you say, it feels like a clickable menu. I suppose it would be ideal to have on this three blocks, with teasers of the latest news, the latest blog entries and the best case studies.
I think you need more than the links - some information to justify the page, and (possibly) help a user decide which of these three they actually want. It seems like a bit of a waste, and it is only repeating material elsewhere, but a click here should progress the users attempts to find what they want, and this should do that.
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