[Sigia-l] length of nav labels

[Naomi Norman]

On 10/8/05 8:16 AM, "Jared M. Spool" <jspool at uie.com> wrote:

> http://www.mcmaster-carr.com (My all-time favorite. This site tests
> tremendously well with its users and most designers HATE it. I mean,
> visceral, OH-MY-GOD "How could anyone use it" hate it. Yet the users just
> love it, usability tests rock, and site revenues are great.)

Jared, did you do any comparative testing with vertical listing rather than
horizontal? 

Recently I've been considering a similar layout for a site with heaps of
information (though not as much as mcmaster!). I found that a lot of user
interface design articles cite the statistic "scanning a horizontal list
takes 20% longer than scanning a vertical list". However, when I tracked
down the source it was based on one study where participants had to locate a
number within a list of numbers. Another key finding of the study was that
aligning lists according to a decimal point improves scanning speed. At that
point I had to question the applicability of this result to web navigation.

Back to the test lab.

Regards
Naomi Norman
______________________________________
Information Management Team Leader
QUT Web Team
Queensland University of Technology
Phone 617 3864 9308
Email n.norman at qut.edu.au