During progress of #1261002: Draggable tables do not work on touch screen devices it became clear that although we can redesign drag and drop interactions just for touch devices, this level of segregation runs us into trouble on devices that support multiple inputs (touch and mouse). This is a common problem in the wider web design industry, causing some to say that all desktop designs should be touch friendly.
Because our drag and drop interaction pattern is so tightly bound to nested items in menu structures, I'm proposing we redesign those in tandem. On sites with large and complex menu structures, the current design struggles to hold up. On smaller screen, it can't really handle any menu structure.
Game plan
We are creeping close to code freeze, so this requires significant effort soon. We need to research modern, elegant solutions to these problems on touch screen devices and on small screens. As it happens, I did some research, and even a prototype of drag and drop in nav.d8mux.org. If we get a design direction soon I think we can fold this implementation work into the new style guide implementation