Facebook's homepage moves more of the navigation to the right - a signal that the convention of left navigation bars is shifting.

Facebook's welcome page - lots of functionality has moved to the right.

When I first saw a left hand navbar in 1995, I was amazed at the idea of dividing the page up into zones, and dedicating one of them to this cryptic concept called "navigation". I never stopped to wonder whether putting it on the left was a good idea. Fundamentally, I don't think it is.

Left to right

In the west, we read from left to right. Eye tracking studies generally indicate the the top left area of the page is the place where everyone looks. But when we arrive on a page, we first want to assess if it brings us closer to our goal. Getting closer to our goals makes us happy. So content, not navigation should go in the prime, left-side spot.

At worst, a navbar says "Are you sure you wanted to be on this page? Why not try a different one?" And because it is there on every page, the question is quite incessant. It's like having the store guide in a department store follow you around on wheels. Or the table of contents appear on every page of a newspaper.

Long left navbars: Do we really need to be able to navigate from anywhere to everywhere else?

Breaking with convention

Mercifully, around 3-4 years ago, left navs started disappearing. Maybe it was eye tracking studies that did it.

Blogs were among the first to shift- the standard templates didn't feature left navs. The changes were a difficult decision for interaction designers. So deep rooted was the left-nav habit, that angst-ridden designers posted on lists asking, "Is it ok to put my nav on the right?"

Some debate ensued. Wasn't convention the most important thing for ease of use? Convention said navbars went on the left. Right was for cross-links, bits and pieces. But a study showed that actually, it didn't make a significant difference. People could complete key tasks with no training with pretty much the same levels of efficiency and effectiveness, with both right and with left navbars.

What we think while we navigate

I like putting the navigation on the right. Here's why. I think people conceptualise their navigation through a website taxonomy like this...

This comes from watching people during a lot of usability tests. If you think about web navigation like that, then right equals forward and left equals backward (just like in a book). People like going forward, making progress towards their goals. So if interaction designers can ensure there is always an interesting place to go forward to, left navigation becomes much less important. You can collapse it into top menus or push it into a rather lovely bottom navbar.
(The other key form of navigation, probably most effective of all, is inline links. But that's another post).

Facebook is moving the emphasis to the right with its redesign. It hasn't given up on the left navbar yet, but I think it will over time, and so will most other websites. Because overall, I think content on the left and onward links on the right suits the way we think.

We just got the first figures back about how the National Express East Coast booking engine has been performing. The site (researched and designed by Flow) has shown impressive increases in revenue and conversion rates.

The figures for the first 6 months:

• 30% increase in online revenue
• 50% increase in conversion rate

This demonstrates, once again, that the right user experience boosts the bottom line. And a talented team of design thinkers following a user-centred design process is a low risk way to get it.

Find out more

• We've published a case study about the project.
• Or you can read more about the design process that the team followed.
• And here's more about customer feedback and loyalty for the site.

Or you could always try the site out for yourself...

Observing target customers in their homes or while they shop can provide the insights you need to build a better website - and a better multichannel experience.

I wrote this article about cross-channel ethnography for Internet Retailing Magazine earlier this year. I'll be talking about this topic at the Internet Retailing event in October.

Insight to innovation: The power of cross-channel ethnography

When Bronislaw Malinowski decided to study the habits and culture of the natives of the Trobriand Islands in the South Pacific during his exile in the First World War, little could he have imagined that the techniques he developed to learn about other cultures would be used to revolutionise the marketing and sales of consumer goods and services. However, this is exactly what is happening.

Ethnography, once confined to academic research departments has, over the last 20-30 years, become a widely used and powerful research technique for companies seeking to improve how they market and sell to customers. They have even turned the lens on themselves to improve how they manage their own businesses.

More recently, the desire to provide compelling multi-channel customer experiences that lure customers away from competitors has become the holy grail for many retailers. However, there is a noticeable gap between the precision with which research is used to understand customer behaviour offline and how it is applied in the design of online stores.

This gap is closing, however. As online retailing enters the mainstream, multi-channel retailers are investing more to improve the quality and effectiveness of their online stores. They are also looking for ways to build customer loyalty in a world where technology is making customers more and more promiscuous. Cross-channel ethnography is one of the tools retailers are turning to for insight.

The trouble with websites...

"Well, I can't really tell what the phone looks like from the picture...", said Katie, a participant in a recent usability study for one of the UK's leading mobile operators. "I would go to a shop at this point, before I make a decision".

From a research point of view, this is not surprising behaviour. It has long been understood that ... Read more