[Sigia-l] potential challenge to the dominance of the left nav bar in local navigation

[James Kalbach]

[George wrote]
> And so it became a convention.

Beyond that, it has even become an internalized "rule" to some,
particularly non-designers, -IAs, or -usability specialists.

For example:
"[the navigation rail] has to be on the left side of the page."

and

"If we were starting from scratch, we might improve the usability of a
site by 1% or so by having a navigation rail on the right rather than on
the left. But deviating from the standard would almost certainly impose a
much bigger cost in terms of confusion and reduced ability to navigate
smoothly."
(Jacob Nielsen < http://www.useit.com/alertbox/991114.html >)

Samantha: that is what I meant with "guru blathering." (He offers
absolutely no evidence for this contention, empirical, anecdotal or
otherwise.)

Putting the navigation on the right side of the Audi sites immediately
felt right to us and we really didn't expect the initial resistance we got
from the client and from others, including practicing usability
specialists. People started citing quotes, such as the one above, and we
found ourselves "guilty until proven innocent" due to popular thought on
the topic fueled, in part, by guru opinion.