A comparison between left- and right-justified site navigation menus
Categorised under: Interface design, Usability & user-centered design
James Kalbach and Tim Bosenick have published the results of recent usability testing on the location of navigation menus. To quote:
The usability of two Web page layouts was directly compared: one with the main site navigation menu on the left of the page, and one with the main site navigation menu on the right. Sixty-four participants were divided equally into two groups and assigned to either the left- or the right-hand navigation test condition. Using a stopwatch, the time to complete each of five tasks was measured. The hypothesis that the left-hand navigation would perform significantly faster than the right-hand navigation was not supported. Instead, there was no significant difference in completion times between the two test conditions. This research questions the current leading Web design thought that the main navigation menu should be left justified.
[Thanks to Peter J. Bogaards.]
James Robertson is the Managing Director of 