Need your thoughts on layout and navigation preferences

fishandchips · Joined: 05 Sep 2009 Posts: 2

Hello! I was hoping that I could get people’s opinions on a design issue that’s been bugging me: to side-navigate or horizontal-navigate?

You see, I can see the plusses and minuses to both. On the one hand, a navigation bar on the side is traditional, but makes the page narrower, and it makes it hard to make the design flexible for many users. I’ve been working with a vertical sidebar on my website, http://www.magesdomain.net/. On the other hand--the one I would like to try--a horizontal navigation bar at the top of the page would be handy and accessible and would solve my space problem, but I was wondering if people would find it disconcerting. Besides, other questions arise: should the bar float as you scroll down the page? My personal favourite, should the navigation bar and the site logo be combined into one banner at the top of the page? Should it include drop-down menus, traditional links or a single quick-access drop-down menu? You see my problem. Does anyone have an opinion on this?

sticks464 · Joined: 31 Dec 2006 Posts: 2625

Side menu, top menu, all is subjective to site needs and owner preference. Menu need should be based on content needs, user monitor size and font-size. Keeping in mind the typical user uses a 17" wide screen monitor and default font size in a 1024x768 resolution.
Your site is a dark site and menus aren't easily seen (top menu this page). I don't see enough content to warrant a top menu at this time.
Something like this site uses could be an option.

fishandchips · Joined: 05 Sep 2009 Posts: 2

Thanks, I'll keep those figures in mind. I was wondering how well that top menu showed up. Mostly I was just wondering what other people preferred to use when they navigated a site. Anyone prefer one or the other?