The mast - I think that’s what you call it - for my pages looks similar to this…
Now I would like to add a menu choice called “Contact Us”, but am unsure of where to put it.
Option 1: One school of thought would say to place it after “Home” because in English people read from left to right, and you want them to see it right away.
Option 2: Another option would be to place it on the far right because the ends/edges of lists often stick out the most. (I like this.)
Option 3: Place it somewhere else based on ______.
The “contact us” link is normally the last link in the main navigation menu. I would tell you there is no reason to deviate from that known placement unless you have an excessive amount of links in the main menu which you don’t. it is “masthead head” not mast.
I think the other replies hit the nail on the head - there’s an existing pattern or trend of “contact” menu items being the last item on the right. I’m not sure of the technical reason for that, if there is one, but an existing trend that users of the Internet may be used to is possibly enough reason to go ahead and do it that way, especially if you or your client have no other particular preference yourself.
At every large enterprise that I’ve worked at - the Contact page was probably in the top 5 visited pages year over year. Not sure if your’s is a new site or this is a new page but look at your Analytics if possible and let that help guide you where/how prominent it should be.
Some questions would help
In your business, when someone contacts you, does that give you a lead?
Is that the intent of the website
Would you rather deter people from using the “Contact” page and search/use the site first?
I think those questions and Analytics should give you a good idea backed with some data as opposed to random “should I put it here or there…”
Personally, I don’t think it should be in a menu at all. The proliferation of large footers makes that real estate perfect for the Contact Us link as well as the About Us link. This way, you have more real estate for higher priority menu items and don’t clutter it up with things that are really not about the functionality of your app.
I disagree completely with that, in many or most cases. For many apps or sites, the site’s entire purpose is to get the user to contact the business; if that is the case why on earth would you not make it a high priority? Same with about us, when a small business or that sort of thing. People want to know something about them before committing, many times.
I can see situations where what you say could be true - but definitely not most of the time.
While About Us and Contact Us are important options, I just don’t believe they belong in a main top aligned menu but as separate links. Now think about Amazon.com, their top menu is very minimal. The menu in their footer is where these functions lie.
It really depends on the functionality of the site, I guess as the sites I manage all have a large number of menu items so we moved them to the footer to free up more space for more important items.
When I was doing Windows application development, it was standard practice to put the About and Contact info in the Help menu on the far right of the main menu. On web applications, I just don’t see that as the case.
It really depends on the functionality of the site
Yep. Amazon doesn’t need me to contact them. A physician’s group website, or a company that does distribution and sales, or a marketing company? They want me to contact them - that’s the entire purpose of the website - not ecommerce or functionality, per se, but the call, the lead. In those cases? Contact should never be in the footer alone. That’s just horrible marketing.
In the case of something like Amazon.com, where contacting the company is in fact something that is far less desirable by both parties (except for help/support)? Sure.
A physician’s group website, or a company that does distribution and sales, or a marketing company? They want me to contact them - that’s the entire purpose of the website
Except that in some of these cases, the PURPOSE is that contact. You should carefully read responses before responding! it helps us to not have to repeat ourselves. This isn’t a case of people asking for help, but rather, driving leads to the sales or accounts personnel.