Media: JoDI compares Left and Right Hand Action

"Web Page Layout: A Comparison Between Left- and Right-justified Site Navigation Menus" appears in the latest volume of the Journal of Digital Information. James Kalbach of Razorfish Germany and Tim Bosenick of SirValUse conducted the study involving sixty-four participants, divided equally into two groups and assigned to either the left- or the right-hand navigation test condition.

The usability of two 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. 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,' say the researchers.

The article is online at the website below, which is designed in such a way that it also offers a link to search the JoDI index specifically on the theme of the 'usability of digital information'.

Associated Link: JoDI: Web Page Layout: A Comparison Between Left- and Right-justified Site Navigation Menus

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