Today I’ve noticed that the order of buttons in the navigational toolbar of my Firefox are really starting to annoy me. All the buttons I use a lot, like “Back”, “Forward”, “Reload” and “Stop” are (or rather, were) in the left part of the bar. This means I have to make a move from the extreme right, which is where my pointer rests when I’m reading/designing/coding or whatever, to the top left corner of the screen.
If I’m not terribly wrong, most people rest their pointer on the right of the screen. So, they have to make the same move to click on their favorite buttons. This means they completely take their eye of the content, go accross all of it with the pointer and then click a button. I feel if the buttons were on the right of the bar, it’d make the navigation faster and more simple.
With all this in mind, I re-arranged my navigational toolbar, and right now it looks like this. With the buttons on the right, it just feels more natural.
Web-designers think about this, and often put the menu on the right side of the web page. In my mind, it just makes more sense to put it there, because of reasons I just mentioned. Your thoughts?
hello!
i found your thoughts on nav bars interesting… however, i think the most important nav elements will always be positioned by default on the left side. the reason for this is that so many people read from left to right, and so they will tend to expect the main nav elements to be on the left, where they mentally feel the page is “anchored.”
perhaps people who read from right to left (or who know a language in which one must read right to left) do not have such strongly ingrained ‘left-centric’ expections.
Or you could just use Opera and it’s mouse gestures :)
I know I’ve read that people tend to leave their mouse on the right side of the browser but never really though about my habits. After browsing through my bloglines and surfing around for a bit, I noticed that I usually leave my pointer wherever I switch my right hand to the keyboard. Usually that means my pointer ends up resting close to the bottom of the window… Perhaps a firefox extension for placing nav buttons on the bottom left of the status bar is in order…or maybe it has already been done?
i tend to agree with aubli. people will tend to glance from left to right to find stuff while reading.
also if they are familiar with using a computer and it’s software, they will again be more familiar with the left hand side being where the navigation starts, for more often than not the critical menu buttons: file, edit, etc.
having said that when browsing, my mouse does tend to like the right hand side of the screen.
while then i agree that rhs nav is a good solution, there will always be those people who are lost when they don’t see the menu where it ‘should’ be.
it is a fine line between structuring the site for what is natural, and structuring it for what has become natural through years of lhs nav – it’s not easier to use and more accessible to position a nav where people don’t expect it.
@blindpilot: I mostly agree with your comment.
The way I’ve set it up is probably appropriate for experienced users only. I do not think that it’s a good solution for beginners, because of user expectations. However, it’s a solution that makes my browsing faster. As I’ve used web browsers for a number of years, I believe it’s a solution that others with browsing experience could adopt.
Learning the keyboard shortcuts would be faster than reaching for the mouse if your hands are already on the keyboard.
Ctrl-L to get to the Location bar, Tab once if you want to Google search.
I second the Opera Mouser Gestures Comment.
For Firefox, but sure to check out the Mouse Gestures Add-on:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/39
and/or
All-in-One Gestures:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/12