Web design question

[Andrew Mutch]

Regular readers of Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox column will be familiar with a
recent column where Mr. Nielsen explained that bad designs can become defacto
web standards if enough web sites adopt them.  See:

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/991114.html

One example he provided was the blue "link" color, which he argues is a poor
color choice in terms of readability.  However, because it is essentially a
standard, a site that uses other colors will suffer in usability because web
users are conditioned to view blue colored text as hyperlinks.  Another
example he gave was the left-justified navigation menu.  Although Fitt's Law
[a very interesting usability concept! - see the link in the column] argues
that a right-justified navigation menu will be more efficient for users, so
many sites now use the left-justified menu that is has become a standard.

Still, I was curious if any libraries use a right-aligned navigation menu in
their web sites.  Our current site design uses a left-aligned menu on the home
page [without the colored bar] but it does make sense that a right-aligned
menu would function better for visitors.  Mr. Nielsen noted that the
left-aligned menu is also counter-productive in that Western-readers focus
from left to right and the most important content should be appear on the left
side of the screen.  On our web site, our highlights, like remote access,
currently sit on the right side of the screen and it does now occur to me that
this information which should be the first thing that visitors see is probably
the last they see.  So, if anyone has a right-aligned site, could they pass
their URL along?

Andrew Mutch
Library Systems Technician
Waterford Township Public Library
Waterford, MI