Are right hand menu bars and navigation, good or bad?

One of the reasons the discussion came to light was due to a designer creating a website with navigation on the right. He'd done some testing with a group and had found that having the navigation on the right hand side of the page made very little difference to how his sample was able to use the page. He was therefore quite happy to keep the navigation on the right but, asked peoples opinion to see if this was unusual. There was some interesting feedback.

A couple of other interactive designers had carried out some experimentation at an earlier date and found that, overall, there was very little difference between left and right hand navigation. Sample sizes etc. were not mentioned so I don't know how conclusive these tests were however, in one case, the site was aimed at a specific usergroup who were already used to using a system with the main navigation based on the right hand side of the page. Easy to see how, for them, it would be an easy step to use a site with navigation on the right without any confusion or slowness.

Well, yes, I believe it still is an issue, and here is why...

Firstly (and not my major point here), if your website is too large for your visitors screen (widthways) which, happens more often than you would think, the navigation on the right is off the page and so the user has to scroll to the right (if they realise) to find out how to navigate through your site. Typically this happens on smaller resolution screens but, you'd be surprised to find out how many are still running at such a low resolution. Google even has a tool which will overlay the data on to your website for you so you can see what percentage of visitors based on googles analysis of screen sizes, will be able to see which portion of your website.

It has been said that using a "liquid" layout or, to you and me, one that fits widthwise to the size screen it's being viewed on would sort this out but, would it? At smaller resolutions, if there is also a leftbar or other form of content on the left of the page also, the central portion or main body of your site would shrink and stretch down making a longer page. The may effect the readability of that central portion. With a fixed layout, of the same 3 column type, the right hand column would, as discussed be off the page. Now, in this scenario, whatever is in that column is off the page so, why put navigation there? At least make sure that the main navigation and content of your site is visible.

Secondly, and this is what I personally believe a lot of people miss, is how we react to colours, spacing and layouts on a webpage in the first few seconds. If the navigation is nice and clear, the visitor will see it clearly. However, if it is on the right, in a left to right reading environment (like any european language based site) the eye is drawn to it when the visitor hits the page and therefore has, unwittingly, taken the users eyes past the main content of the site. The natural tendency is then to start reading from the next lowest left hand portion of the screen. Personally, I find it slightly disruptive to my concentration when the navigation is on the right and I'm reading information in depth for that very reason. This was something I just noticed myself doing when on various websites.

Remember, you only have a small number of seconds to get your visitors to find the information they're after and keep them on your site. What if you're pulling their eyes away from that information the second they land on your webpage? I believe this second point to be much more of an issue than the first. I also think it's something people don't recognise as it's beyond their control. With the vast amount of websites out there, if you subconciously get put off a site or can't find the information you want, you go elsewhere, it makes very little odds to you, the visitor.

This is just my opinion and, at present, can't find any actual research to back it up or disprove either so, have a think and see what happens next time your visiting a website and having trouble reading it or finding something. Is the navigation on the right or, is there something else on the right hand side which is distracting you from what you want to be reading? I think you'll be amazed how often you say "yes". I notice it when it happens to me because I do this for a living. It's probably happening to you regularly but you're not fully aware of it.