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Thread: right-hand side navigation menu
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Jun 26, 2003, 07:25 #1
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right-hand side navigation menu
Many websites (at least ones in which the language reads left-to-right) use a menu on the left and text on the right. I have been recently wondering about putting a nav menu on the right side of the screen for an English language website. How intuitive/ergonomic would this be? I was reading on another forum at another site and some people felt that this is more ergonomic than the traditional left-hand side menu.
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Jun 26, 2003, 07:31 #2
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Razorfish did some testing on it a while ago (for the German Audi site) and apparently the right-side menu came off better than left in their test. They did a write-up about it on Boxes and Arrows - I'll post a link if I find it.
EDIT: http://www.boxesandarrows.com/archiv...redesigned.phpTuitionFree — a free library for the self-taught
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Jun 26, 2003, 07:35 #3
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i've had a recent discussion with a few colleagues on this, and my take on it is as follows...from an ergonomic point of view, it seems true that having menus on the right-hand side reduces the distance of mouse movements and, after a while, can become very intuitive...however, taking the "don't make me think" http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...2716?vi=glance approach, it's a fact that left-hand navigation menus are still the most common form of side navigation...so breaking this "de facto" standards may disorient some users, resulting in an adverse effect on usability.
for an upcoming large-scale redesign project, i'm sticking with a left-hand navigation bar, but i'm going to offer an alternate stylesheet which positions the navigation to the right...so users can choose whatever suits them.re·dux (adj.): brought back; returned. used postpositively
[latin : re-, re- + dux, leader; see duke.]
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Jun 26, 2003, 08:59 #4
I like the right-side navigation more personally, but as redux said, left-side nav is still the most common. I've actually taken a combined approach in the past: main site navigation on the left, "extra" nav on the right (i.e. digging deeper into a section of the site, search, etc.), and content in the middle. I find that this approach works well with a lot of menu information, as it's not all cluttered on one side and makes links easier to find.
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Jun 26, 2003, 11:40 #5
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Research shows that users click on topics in the right margin with much more efficiency than topics placed on the left because they are located much closer to the scroll bar. This allows users to quickly move the pointer between the scroll bar and the index items. Benefits are particularly strong for laptops.
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Jun 26, 2003, 12:29 #6
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If it looks like nav, I'll nav it.
If it don't look like nav, who cares, I'll click on it anyway.Hello World
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Jun 27, 2003, 00:23 #7
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I must say I've never considered putting a menu on the right but there are some good reasons why, particularly what Webnauts said, it makes sense. I think I'll give it a go in the future!
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Jun 27, 2003, 00:53 #8
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Originally Posted by Webnauts
Also, I was thinking an effective argument could be made about left-flanking navigation pushing the content into the middle of the screen, where a lot of people tend to start viewing a page. And does the fact that a lot of sites use the right side to display ads train people to put on blinders there?
That said, I like right-flanking navigation about as much as left-flanking navigation.
~~Ian
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Jun 27, 2003, 01:00 #9
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A very good example of a right-hand nav can be found here...
http://www.alistapart.com/index.html
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Jun 27, 2003, 01:45 #10
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Originally Posted by Ian Glass
* Redux's goanna have a field day with that statement :-pre·dux (adj.): brought back; returned. used postpositively
[latin : re-, re- + dux, leader; see duke.]
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Jun 27, 2003, 03:43 #11
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Aye, but the problem with alternate styles, is that they're not advertised by any browser--people don't even know they exist. And the fact that your choice isn't remembered across pages makes navigating a site with alternate styles nightmarish. So then what, you're left having to use a hard-coded, JavaScript-dependent, style-sheet-switching widget to change your navigation scheme--and just where are you going to put that widget?
Seems like clutter to me. Anyway, I couldn't imagine the choice between left- & right-handed navigation being nearly as important as what goes in the navigation. :-)
~~Ian
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Jun 27, 2003, 04:48 #12
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A source concerning placing navigation on right:
Bailey, R.W., Koyani, S. and Nall, J. (2000), Usability testing of several health information QWeb sites, National Cancer Institute Technical Report, September 7-8.
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Jun 27, 2003, 06:29 #13
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Originally Posted by Ian Glass
but yes, i hear yare·dux (adj.): brought back; returned. used postpositively
[latin : re-, re- + dux, leader; see duke.]
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Jul 14, 2003, 13:54 #14
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Another interesting link:
http://www.humanfactors.com/downloads/jan02.asp
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Jul 15, 2003, 16:08 #15
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I much prefer top navigation. I find side navigation to be hard to fit into 800x600 screen size, so either a dynamic width table or a specially coded 1024x768 site would result.
(I dislike dynamic tables because I'm lazy when designing and prefer to have everything as close to what I see as possible).
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Jul 15, 2003, 16:12 #16
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Originally Posted by Amorya
No arguments about that, so far I know!
What I do not agree about, is designing for certain screen resolutions.
That is not a good usability.
The most recommended design is with Fluid Layout (width 100%). [img]images/smilies/wink.gif[/img]
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Jul 16, 2003, 06:51 #17
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Originally Posted by Webnauts
If there is a decent way around this, I wouldn't mind hearing your take on it!
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Jul 23, 2003, 10:09 #18
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Originally Posted by Pras
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Jul 23, 2003, 16:45 #19
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I always use the "skip to content" link on the top of the page, and I never have been convinced that instead is better to have the navigation on the right side.
See what I am working on at the moment: http://www.webnauts.net/css/third.shtml
Though I use a visible "skip to content" link. Why visible?
More here: http://infocentre.frontend.com/servl...article&id=150
Why internal links on the left?
http://psychology.wichita.edu/optimalweb/position.htm
And the main links are at the top, to avoid any conflicts between the concurent theories: Left or Right Navigation?
I would like to view your work. Can I have the link?
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Jul 26, 2003, 06:55 #20
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Originally Posted by bdmcnitt
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Jul 26, 2003, 15:51 #21
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Originally Posted by hurricane.uk
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Jul 28, 2003, 04:58 #22
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I played around with a right side nav section for a while, but I found that if my users ran a smaller resolution sometimes my nav bar was off the screen. Granted this was a few years ago and I was coding for 800x600, and hopefully most users have upgraded their systems to show a larger resolution than was the norm then, but you may want to keep that in mind as well.
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Jul 28, 2003, 05:09 #23
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Originally Posted by HardinComp
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