They “seem” to work, IMHO. Content focusing seems better, but again that’s only MHO. Right-sided navigation is probably a calculated risk web designers make.

Ease of learning: if well-designed, i.e. ‘looks’ like navigation, communicates its function, no difference; left 1, right 1Efficiency of use: depends on how the user browses and the task they are trying to complete, assuming scrolling using the scrollbar on the right of the browser window, it takes less time to move the mouse from bottom-right to top-right; left 0, right 1Memorability: once learnt, likely to be equal; left 1, right 1Error frequency: n/aSubjective satisfaction: left matches conventions (or at least it did prior to the blog revolution), right may cause a slight mental ‘twinge’; left 1, right .5

Tally: left 3 right 3.5.

And now the deciding round.

What is the user’s mental model (their instinctive understanding) of the relationship between the navigation and the content based on the location of the navigation on the page?

My belief is that left hand navigation, at an instinctual level, is commonly understood as a formal hierarchy, locating the content within a greater information structure (similar to a topic path/breadcrumb nav).
Right-hand navigation is likely to suggest links that are related to the current content, e.g. of a similar granularity, topic or in the case of blogs, another entry (i.e. related by author). This understanding of right hand navigation is likely to be based on the layout conventions of print and newspapers where sidebars tend to be positioned to the right of articles.

If the placement of the navigation corresponds with the relationship between navigation and content, then the fight could be decided in favour of either the left or right.
So context appears to be the winner on the night.

(Enabling repetitive links to be by-passed by users with assistive technologies is not included in this discussion, as both left and right navigation can equally be made accessible.)

I see this as another example of assuming all your users are nondisabled (i.e., all your users are just like you – a typical fanboy error).

Joe,

Once again, you are absolutely right. We haven’t taken the disabled into account at all in our research. (It’s not that we think they are an unimportant segment, it’s just that we have our hands full trying to understand the problems for the subset of users that are non-disabled.)

Screen-reader and -magnifier users have actual preferences. It does “matter one whit” to them. The problem is they require two different methods.

Well, what I know about screen readers you could fit onto a very small, well, um, screen. Isn’t it true that in a world of CSS/Standards-goodness, screen-readers and -magnifiers could look into the HTML and pull out the navigation from the other content of the page, assuming it was indicated with some sort of magic tags to do so. How come there hasn’t been a movement to make the magic tags work? Then the readers wouldn’t care about the physical rendering on the page, right?

You asked,

doesn’t this all depend on the situation?

Absolutely! However, some situations are likely to be more frequent than others. And, in our experience, we’ve found that the need for global navigation is quite rare, when the site is designed well.

When the site is designed poorly, users will gravitate to global nav frequently. This sets up a addressing-the-symptoms feedback loop: “Oh my, users are asking for better global navigation. We better give it to them.”

When someone is asking for global nav, it’s best to spend the time to find out why. There’s a good chance there’s a better way to design it.

All fixed.

– dave

Be interesting to explore and discuss stats from banks, ebays, yahoo to see how much attention we have before login (and what people are using to find information) and post login (when the company has your attention) e.g. login and show me how much i owe, what are my latest transactions etc.

Screen-reader and -magnifier users have actual preferences. It does “matter one whit” to them. The problem is they require two different methods.

doesn’t this all depend on the situation?

I’m the guy who did this study for the Audi website:
http://jodi.tamu.edu/Articles/v04/i01/Kalbach/

Basically, this was a formality to convince the client that the sky was not falling. We as designers knew it was the best design to have the navigation on the right: it’s more innovative (an Audi brand value), none of the competitors have the navigation on the right, Fitt’s law, etc etc.

Global nav v. no global nav, right v. left side, etc. MAY matter depending on the situation. You can’t make an asituational blanket statement about these things. Designers just need to get their heads out of guidelines and do what’s best for the situation. Oh yeah, testing with users helps too.

Cheers,
Jim

-Navigation matters, including global navigation – customers nearly ALWAYS used it and relied upon it to accomplish tasks.

J D,

With all due respect, how do you know that users nearly always used the global navigation because they preferred to use it? What if they used it because your design forced them to?

In other words, if you had a radically different design that either (a) always had the information they needed on the current page (because you had the forsight to know what they would need) or (b) had local navigation links to the next content they would need, would they still gravitate to the global nav? In our studies, the answer is no.

I may be looking at a cookbook on Amazon.com and decide I need a new roasting pan. There just might not be a local link.

So, what we’re telling our clients is, instead of worrying about designing the ultimate global nav, use those resources to make sure there’s the right local links. You’ll end up with a design that works much better for users.

-Navigation matters, including global navigation – customers nearly ALWAYS used it and relied upon it to accomplish tasks.

-Customers get frustrated when they have to “find things” on a web page

-People get trained by conventions like clicking on a comapny logo in the upper right hand of a page bringing you to a home page. Differing from what customers expect is very frustrating for them.

As to right or left side, convention trains people. If you want people to be comfortable using your site – give them what they’re used to. You are just dead wrong to state that you can put global navigation anywhere and it doesn’t matter. What would happen if we suddenly reveresed the gas and brake pedals in a new car?

Local navigation is important, and should be well designed. However, particularly on large sites, sometimes I want to navigate to first-tier sections. I may be looking at a cookbook on Amazon.com and decide I need a new roasting pan. There just might not be a local link. If it takes me too long to find the cookware on Amazon – I’ll go elsewhere.