L
Luigi Donatello Asero
Are there any studies about whether it is easier for a user to read a menu
on the left or on the right of a webpage?
on the left or on the right of a webpage?
R
Rik
Luigi said:
Yes, because people are used to it, the left is preferred. People scan a
webpage in an F-like pattern it seems. Google Nielsen & F-pattern. It seems
to show the right column is hardly ever checked.
Grtz,
L
Luigi Donatello Asero
Rik said:
Has W3 never used a menu on the left?
I think I had seen it a few days ago...
L
Luigi Donatello Asero
Luigi Donatello Asero said:
Sorry, I meant on the right.
R
Rik
Luigi said:
Does that matter? What w3c uses for layout on their pages is a totally
different question.
Grtz,
L
Luigi Donatello Asero
Rik said:
Well, W3 has probably been concerned about such aspects, has it not?
L
Luigi Donatello Asero
Rik said:
Perhaps many use the menu on the left because they have a layout which is
not fluid and the user cannot read the last part on the right if he or she
resizes the window.
But what is best if I want to have 3 columns which are not absolute
positioned, one of which containing photos, another for the menu, and the
third being the main column?
Is it better to place the other 2 on the same side, either on the left or
on the right and then on which side?
Or is it better to place one on the left and the other on the right and in
this case on which side is it better to place the menu and on which side is
it better to place the photos?
M
mbstevens
L
Luigi Donatello Asero
mbstevens said:
Interesting.
If users scan a webpage in a F-like pattern,
why does Google put their advertisements on the right side?
G
Greg N.
mbstevens said:
Interesting. But, in no way is this a proof or indicator that menus on
the right would be in any way less ergonomic.
If anything, it shows that the content of a block of information is
scanned in an F-fashion. It shows that the frequency that individual
blocks are looked at is somehow in proportion to their amount of text
content. It shows that our eyes are trained to dodge ads.
But it is not surprising that these eytracking studies show little
attention to the right hand side of web pages, because most web pages
don't have much there to look at. To conclude that right hand menus
would be inferior is daring.
It reminds me a little of the joke of the bridge project:
The city fathers debated building a new bridge across the river. To
determine whether a bridge at this spot would be needed and accepted by
the citizen, they hired a consulting firm. After an extensive traffic
flow tracking project, the consultants suggested not to build the
bridge. The tracking data clearly showed that there was no traffic at
the projected bridge position.
C
Chris F.A. Johnson
Like much of Nielsen's stuff, it raises as many questions as it
answers. He often makes some excellent points mixed with a lot of
nonsense.
In his article,
<http://www.useit.com/alertbox/reading_pattern.html>, the examples
do show hot spots on items in the right-hand column.
In this article, <http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=2776>, the example
shown does not exhibit the F-pattern. It shows the viewer reading
the right column, because that's where the information is.
What his research seems to show is that the eye pattern is
influenced by the layout of the page, not by a predtermined
pattern.
J
JAF
My two cents worth:
1. Most people are use to the left.
2. When I resize my browser, it is set on the left margin. Thus left
links will usually show up. Right links will necessitate a scroll.
3. If you do not code your pages correctly and you have pages wider
than the settings on my computer, rights links will be off the page,
and again necessitate a scroll.
I sometimes do top and bottom links instead or right and left links.
I also try to incorporate many of my links in the content of the page.
I use a site map and clearly indicate its link.
But I have seen web pages that size correclty and show right links no
matter the size of the browser window or the settings of the computer
screen.
Some of these work very well.
Hope this helps.
Best regards,
JAF
http://www.bscinc.net
http://www.affordablefloridainsurance.com
http://www.americanltci.com
D
dorayme
mbstevens said:
It is impressive how you can find these things mb!
B
Beauregard T. Shagnasty
Luigi said:
Because advertisements are not important to the rest of the page.
I never see them.
C
cwdjrxyz
Luigi said:
I am a little late to this thread, and many aspects have been covered
by others. However, there are some languages that read from right to
left. I wonder if readers for such languages would have the same
opinion as readers of most European languages that read from left to
right.
L
Luigi Donatello Asero
cwdjrxyz said:
Good question!
Apart from this, I have been trying to test a three column approach for a
while but there is something I am missing.
First, I tried to do that with the first three capitels which I had and it
seemed to work. Later, I thought that I had rather insert a column for
advertisements on the left because the page is very long (and hopefully
interesting) but since I tried to do that, I have not been able to have
three columns which start at the same point.
I floated to the left the first and to the right the third and I did not
float the one in the middle but the one on the right starts after the
others.
Any suggestions?
M
mbstevens
I was sufficiently impressed by these
that I had them bookmarked.
M
mbstevens
The images on these pages certainly don't seem to.
I haven't plopped the yardage for the full study.
A similar metaphor is "technology push" vs. "user pull."
Both have to be taken into consideration when interpreting
the meaning of any study like this.
D
dorayme
"cwdjrxyz said:
Where I come from, we are more comfortable reading upside down so
I would cvery much appreciate if Luigi would make his one-man
business website easy for us. Menu at the bottom please.
C
cwdjrxyz
dorayme said:
Some ancient languages read in vertical columns. I believe one is a
version of ancient Egyptian used on tombs and such. There are several
variations that might be possible in some of these ancient languages.
One might read vertical columns from top to bottom or bottom to top.
One might start reading columns on the left or right. I guess for
Australia, you might want to read from down to up. Then you would want
to start on the right if you are conservative and on the left if you
are liberal
.