4 Things To Consider When Choosing Between Side Navigation and Top Navigation:
1. How many main navigation items do you have?
- Top Navigation limits you to about 7 items
- Side Navigation doesn’t have a limit
2. How long are the names for your navigation items?
- With Top Navigation you need short names so you can fit them all in
- With Side Navigation you can go a bit longer: 2 or sometimes 3 words are ok. Longer names are more descriptive and make it easier for web visitors to find what they are looking for
3. Will you add more pages to your main nav in the future?
- With Top Nav you are incentivised to keep the status quo, because is the bar is already full it’s hard making compromises to fit one more item in
- With Side Nav it’s no problem
4. What about usability? Is side nav or top nav easier to use?
- To access 2nd level navigation, “Fly-outs” are harder for web visitors to use than “drop-downs”
- It’s easy for the mouse to slip off the navigation item and then you have to start the movement again
What Do You Think?
What’s your preference? Have your say in the comments below.
