Right-aligned Navigation: Revisited
Some of you may know about my research with left versus right aligned navigation. Eli linked me to the new Daily Kos theme and his blog entry about it. I have some words about it.
Left-column navigation bars force people to move the cursor across the entire site. Shitty user interface.
Shitty huh? As you may notice from the link, the site has right-aligned navigation and fixed width. His argument doesnt hold for his own style because users still have to move the mouse to the scroll bar. The distance may be smaller, but if you weigh the comfort and familiarity of left-aligned nav and the “efficiency” of right-aligned nav, comfort may be a stronger factor than clicking a link faster.
To tell you the truth I dont think any of these designers have ever asked a user what they prefer. The saying “Users are not designers.” still holds true, but that doesnt mean you should design something the user doesnt like. Red and teal may be your favorite colors, but if your audience is going to puke every time they go to your website, maybe its not the best color scheme?
A lot of designers lately have been using the excuse that right-aligned navigation is better than the left because its closer to the scroll bar. They are correct in saying that it is closer to the scroll bar, but they dont consider any other human factors. Yes, people are used to the left navigation and there is some speculation that right-aligned navigation could be distracting. No, that does not mean we should never ever consider right-aligned navigation. But I dont think it would be a smart design move to switch all of your designs over to right-aligned navigation to be “cutting-edge”.
I just finished a case study about a solution I developed for the federal agency I work with. What I learned from the entire development process is there could be more than one solution. The best supported and usable solution may have sacrifices in some areas to be stronger in others. The best solution was derived from the information architecture of the page.
Web design isnt static. You cant follow a guideline, a book or a “best practices” template unless you want the amateur site you get from not putting any thought in to it. Information architecture has a very strong influence on how a user interacts and comprehends the page. Sure, try something new and move things around, but essentially if you want an effective design, having an “edgey” layout may not be the best solution for your audience.
I hate to jump to conclusions, but preliminary results from my study show that left navigation made text faster to read than the right. I didnt test for comprehension or preference. I’m certainly not advocating left nav over right nav, but I think its important to research and test layouts before bad practices become “industry standard”. We let that happen in the 90’s and now the web is trying to recover by spending lots of money on usability consultants and training.
Right navigation could definitly be effective for certain kinds of information, but the only way to find out is to put a little thought in to it.
seele :: Jun.24.2005 :: General, HCI, Technology, Work :: 2 Comments »
Keep in mind that many people prefer to use the mouse wheel instead of the scroll bar.
Of course. That is just one of the arguments of the pro-right-aligned navigation.