[Sigia-l] Visual Balance vs. Left Leaning Layouts

[Samantha Bailey]

I have to say upfront that I don't have real qualifications when it comes to
aesthetics--I rely heavily on the graphic designers I work with to strike a
balance between what I want to do as the "librarian" and what will be most
visually appealing/functional.

That said, I have historically been a strong proponent of left-leaning
layouts (I mean, really strong), but there are two things that have recently
made me question this tendency. The most powerful is some accessibility
testing we are doing with visually impaired users. Their screen readers read
every single left nav option on every single page, forcing them to either
have the sophistication to set their reader so that it allows them to skip
this or to essentially "tab" past each option. This adds significant load to
their work.

The second is the ongoing question of how valuable navigation options are
for all users--this is much more open to debate and I don't think there is a
quick and easy answer, but I do find that in user tests typical users ignore
or are blind to many nav. features.

These two issues combined may suggest that it's time to consider *right*
loading or other kinds of treatments. (I don't think they offer much
evidence in support of visual balance.)

A last note regarding the accessibility testing--we did the test because we
wanted to gauge user reaction to as well as the usability of our text only
version of the site as well as our regular site due to some concerns about
creating a kind of "apartheid" with the text-only pages. The text-only pages
actually tested very well and were positively received by our visually
impaired users *after* they used the pages--the did express reservations
about the tex-only concept. At present we're intending to keep our text-only
pages and are looking at radically changing left nav presentation on those
pages; theoretically I'm open to having us reconsider the left nav dominance
on the text plus images part of the site, but that would require a
significant change that isn't likely to happen for some time.


Samantha Bailey
samantha at baileysorts.com | http://baileysorts.com


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dave Collins" <DCollins at phoenix-interactive.com>
To: <sigia-l at asis.org>
Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2003 10:55 AM
Subject: RE: [Sigia-l] Visual Balance vs. Left Leaning Layouts


> I have not seen any research, but I would argue strongly that functional
> (i.e. left-weighted) is much more desired than aesthetically pleasing
> (centred). This isn't poetry we're creating.
>
> I suspect the reason left-weighted is more functional, particularly for
web
> pages, is that the content is not read, it is scanned. Only the bare
minimum
> of a text block, paragraph, sentence, phrase or even word is scanned by
the
> eye/brain - just enough to rule it out as the piece of information sought.
> That means the eye will continually return to the left far, far more often
> than in any other type of reading. Anything that speeds this process up is
> good.
>
>
> Dave Collins
> User Interface Design
> Phoenix Interactive
> 4th floor, 137 Dundas St,
> London ON, N6A 1E9
> V: 519.679.2913 x292
> F: 519.679.6773
> E: dcollins at phoenix-interactive.com
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: lcarter3 at gmu.edu [mailto:lcarter3 at gmu.edu]
> Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2003 10:47 AM
> To: sigia-l at asis.org
> Subject: [Sigia-l] Visual Balance vs. Left Leaning Layouts
>
> What is more important for a task oriented web page
> design (not a marketing or art site) & how do you
> choose:
>
> 1) The layout of the text & graphics shows the
> information hierarchy but putting the subordinate
> concepts below & perhaps indented  indented under
> superordinate concepts (like in an outline or tree
> view).
>
> 2) The display be visually balanced (not to much
> optical weight on one side
> or the other)?  For example, if you have a web page
> with a vertical nav area
> down the left and align all text and buttons to the
> left inside the content
> area, the page looks unbalances because there's too
> much on the left.
>
> Has anyone seen any research on support either idea
> or any research
> comparing these design goals?
>
>
> Leslie Carter, PhD
> George Mason University
> Instructional Design & Development
>
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