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

[Jacky Kwok]

I'm from Hong Kong which is a city of China. So far, I haven't seen any
Chinese web site having their text from right to left, no matter the site
based in China, Hong Kong or Taiwan.

Yes, Chinese are read from right to left traditionally. But nowadays, almost
all Chinese are read from left to right, including traditional media like
books and newspapers. And if you make the Chinese read from right to left,
you will have a big problem for inserting some English words in Chinese
paragraphs.

Regards,
Jacky Kwok

----- Original Message -----
From: "Benjamin Speaks" <benspeaks at prodigy.net>
To: "Welie, Martijn van" <martijn.van.welie at satama.com>; "'James Kalbach'"
<kalbach at scils.rutgers.edu>; <sigia-l at mail.asis.org>
Sent: Friday, February 07, 2003 9:59 AM
Subject: Re: [Sigia-l] potential challenge to the dominance of the left nav
bar in local navigation


> I agree with most of your comments below.
>
> With this discussion in mind I wanted to get some feedback from my
peers...
>
> I have been asked to provided feedback on a unique project that will be
> using a rather expensive CMS to serve up data in two different languages:
> English and Chinese.  In addition, the users of this particular site will
be
> skewed over the age of 40.  As many of you know many traditional Chinese
> manuscripts are read from right to left (yes, the has changed over time
but
> many learned to read the classics this way).  We, "English" types, of
> course, like to read from left to right.
>
> Has anyone seen any usability and/or eye-tracking research on dual
language
> sites that can address this issue?  In particular any research on
navigation
> placement when dealing with multinational audiences?
>
> Thanks,
> Ben
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Welie, Martijn van" <martijn.van.welie at satama.com>
> To: "'James Kalbach'" <kalbach at scils.rutgers.edu>; <sigia-l at mail.asis.org>
> Sent: Thursday, February 06, 2003 10:56 AM
> Subject: RE: [Sigia-l] potential challenge to the dominance of the left
nav
> bar in local navigation
>
>
> > From: James Kalbach [mailto:kalbach at scils.rutgers.edu]
> > > [Jon Hanna wrote:]
> > > > matches a read-content-then-go-elsewhere usage
> > > > pattern to LTR reading
> > >
> > > Exactly. From all of the tests we performed with the Audi websites, I
> > > believe this to be most important benefits from the
> > > right-hand navigation.
> >
> > Although this reasoning does not seem bad at first sight, I don't think
it
> > is as simple as that. Especially at the new Audi website there are many
> > aspects that compromise the user experience. I personally don't like the
> > right-hand navigation at all. The way the subnavigation then grows from
> > right to left feels even more weird, at least at the audi.de site. Try
the
> > site with a fullscreen browser, like I use, and you'll find the
navigation
> > to be miles away from the content. It breaks the link between content
and
> > navigation.
> >
> > Having said that, I like to throw in some other considerations:
> > - Putting navigation left indeed puts more emphasis on the navigation.
In
> > some cases where the users are not very familiar with the site's
content,
> > this is exactly what you want. It communicates what there is to find and
> how
> > it is structured. In other cases this may be less important and you can
> > decide to have users focus on the main content. So it is not about
whether
> > right or left is better, it is about what you want to achieve.
> > - Right navigation remains dangerous because of the fact that it easily
> > appears out of sight, depending how you have (not) coded the behavior of
> > navigation. With the Audi site they have tried to solve it but I think
it
> is
> > clearly still problematic to say the least. Further more, if windows are
> > moved users move them down or to the right (or both) of the screen. This
> > leads to the fact that navigation is (again) out of sight....Top left is
> > simply the safest option.
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Martijn van Welie
> > ------------
> > When replying, please *trim your post* as much as possible.
> > *Plain text, please; NO Attachments
> >
> > ASIST IA 03 Summit: Making Connections
> > http://www.asist-events.org/IASummit2003/
> >
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> ------------
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> *Plain text, please; NO Attachments
>
> ASIST IA 03 Summit: Making Connections
> http://www.asist-events.org/IASummit2003/
>
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