

Left v/s Right Sidebar – which layout works best? - paraschopra
http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/split-testing-blog/left-vs-right-sidebar-which-layout-works-best/

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gacba
Actually, this isn't very conclusive. All it says is that _his_ website's
layout doesn't matter left or right weighted.

Jakob Nielsen tested more than one website and came to a very different
conclusion: Left weighted sites are preferable.

<http://www.useit.com/alertbox/horizontal-attention.html>

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paraschopra
Yep, 100% agree. That is why I wrote in the post:

>(Though it may differ for you – you should A/B test it, it is really quite
simple).

A/B testing results (even Jakob's) should never be implemented without testing
on your own site. Though A/B testing case studies give ideas and set a good
benchmark using which you can compare your own results.

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rajatmehta1
I think it mostly depends on the type of site...if you are making a blog then
on LHS or on the Top (not sure why but i think R.H.S doesnot look good in this
way) but If you are showing videos or pictures then right side navigation
works very well i think....suppose you show a video and then you can show some
related videos on the r.h.s...if the user who is seeing hte video on the lhs
of the screen keeps the mouse cursor on the r.h.s (mostly he migth keep there
since the menu is there)....then if you show related videos there the tendency
to click on that side is more... this is what youtube does..

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unfair
Really depends on whether the sidebar is navigation or not. If it's extra
stuff like RSS feeds and graphs (as in his example) then right is better. On
the other hand, I much prefer navigation sidebars on the left side.

Why? I don't know, it just feels more comfortable that way.

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petercooper
I conducted a totally unscientific poll on Twitter a few days ago. About 20
people responded with two-thirds _preferring_ content left, sidebar right.

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moe
So, I'm supposed to take design advice from a site that gives me horizontal
scrollbars at <1440px window width?

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petercooper
Really? I don't get any horizontal scrollbars till < 997px browser width,
which isn't an unreasonable level nowadays.

<http://skitch.com/petercooper/dyeh8/x>

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moe
Looks like your font-size is much smaller than mine.

This is chrome with everything on default (I did _not_ increase it), on a
1920x1600 screen.

Seems the design advice site needs some help with CSS.

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petercooper
I just tried and Chrome and it's almost identical to Safari. Don't know what
OS you're on but this is on OS X (if you couldn't tell :-)) with everything
totally default too (I almost never use Chrome so it's just how it came).

