Posted by Rik on 08/21/06 07:03

Greg N. wrote:
> mbstevens wrote:
>
>> Here we go:
>> http://www.useit.com/alertbox/reading_pattern.html
>> http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=2776
>
> Interesting. But, in no way is this a proof or indicator that menus
> on the right would be in any way less ergonomic.
>
> If anything, it shows that the content of a block of information is
> scanned in an F-fashion. It shows that the frequency that individual
> blocks are looked at is somehow in proportion to their amount of text
> content. It shows that our eyes are trained to dodge ads.
>
> But it is not surprising that these eytracking studies show little
> attention to the right hand side of web pages, because most web pages
> don't have much there to look at. To conclude that right hand menus
> would be inferior is daring.

Not really inferior, not at all actually. However, since people are
'trained' to scan in an F-like pattern, and the internet public is very
fast in leaving a site, you could well lose some visitors who cannot spot
you navigation in a split second. Ergonomically there is nothing wrong with
it.

> It reminds me a little of the joke of the bridge project:
>
> The city fathers debated building a new bridge across the river. To
> determine whether a bridge at this spot would be needed and accepted
> by the citizen, they hired a consulting firm. After an extensive
> traffic flow tracking project, the consultants suggested not to build
> the bridge. The tracking data clearly showed that there was no
> traffic at the projected bridge position.

Hehe :-)

Grtz,
--
Rik Wasmus

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