4 ms·

I assume the F-shape pattern is only effective in languages that read left-to-right?

by mdg 16y ago

realitygrill 16y ago
Maybe. But the Asian languages all tend to be displayed left-to-right on the web. I've only seen Arabic (or Farsi?) script written right-to-left online.
ncbutters 16y ago
Yeah I think this point has a parallel in #6 referring to placing important content on the left of a web page... "...for sites that are traditionally read from left to right, placing important design components at the left is a good idea; vice versa for sites whose language is read from right to left."
- amalcon 16y ago
  That quote got me thinking, though, about the question they did not answer: What about languages that are read top-to-bottom first?
- nooneelse 16y ago
  Number 6 had me imagining an extreme test case. All the content of a page is in a narrow vertical column over at the right of a page. Show me a heatmap of that test page with real users still spending most all of their time looking at the big blank space at the left and... well I'll eat one of these pencils on my desk I guess, as I have no hat I wish to part with.
DougWebb 16y ago
I wonder how much the sites they used biased the results. Google's search results are very F-shaped, for example, and so is any left-to-right language text that is divided into paragraphs with headings. Does the "use an F-shaped pattern" recomendation actually boil down to "display text the way ypu normally would in your language"? If so, that's not nearly as interesting.
- jrwoodruff 16y ago
  I had the same thought actually. I think what might be more interesting, or at least as interesting, is the flow of how the user looked at the page. What did they look at first, second, etc. The fact that the bottom right corner is barely ever looked at directly is hardly surprising, but seeing how the user processes the page could be interesting, especially with some layouts that are more visual than than search results.
- jm3 16y ago
  Well for navigation, the F-shaped or "Top-Left" pattern has been a staple of site design for at least 11 years. In 1999, when i started making sites, the sort of nav was considered "boring" because everyone was using it, and our designers often created weird (poorly performing) nav just to buck the trend.
jsm386 16y ago
I have no clue what she based it on, but my fourth grade teacher demanded that her students' booths at the school science fair be positioned so that they were to your left when you walked into the gymnasium. "People look to their left first and they'll look at your projects first." Did she have any basis for this?
- potatolicious 16y ago
  Not as far as I know. (Western language speaking) People do tend to read from left to right (and up-to-down), but there's no evidence to suggest that this applies to non-linguistic things, especially as basic as the way they look when they enter a room. I had the pleasure of some industrial ergonomics/design courses in college, and IMHO web designers would be wise to look at the decades of research that have gone into that field. Much of it remains relevant even in software/web UI.
  - petercooper 16y ago
    there's no evidence to suggest that this applies to non-linguistic things That seemed odd to me just going off (less than scientific) bits and pieces I've read over the years, especially relating to retail design where a popular adage is that "people tend to walk to the right upon entering a store" (so that's where you put the more expensive goodies). But a cliché isn't evidence. So I thought I'd look for stronger citations. And man, it's tough. I haven't found anything on the retail thing yet but there seems to be evidence of preferences for one direction over another in studies. For example: http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2006/12/satisfaction-guaranteed.html http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2006/12/satisfaction... Reading direction appears to have an influence on the ease with which items are detected in different hemispheres: http://pss.sagepub.com/content/16/1/15.abstract http://pss.sagepub.com/content/16/1/15.abstract (and sort of related: http://pss.sagepub.com/content/18/6/487.abstract http://pss.sagepub.com/content/18/6/487.abstract)
- nitrogen 16y ago
  It's possible that adults with US driver's licenses, having been trained to look left first, then right, when crossing traffic, may do so in pedestrian situations as well (such as entering a crowded gymnasium).

I assume the F-shape pattern is only effective in languages that read left-to-right?

by mdg 16y ago

I assume the F-shape pattern is only effective in languages that read left-to-right?

Maybe. But the Asian languages all tend to be displayed left-to-right on the web. I've only seen Arabic (or Farsi?) script written right-to-left online.

ncbutters 16y ago

Yeah I think this point has a parallel in #6 referring to placing important content on the left of a web page... "...for sites that are traditionally read from left to right, placing important design components at the left is a good idea; vice versa for sites whose language is read from right to left."

amalcon 16y ago
That quote got me thinking, though, about the question they did not answer: What about languages that are read top-to-bottom first?
nooneelse 16y ago
Number 6 had me imagining an extreme test case. All the content of a page is in a narrow vertical column over at the right of a page. Show me a heatmap of that test page with real users still spending most all of their time looking at the big blank space at the left and... well I'll eat one of these pencils on my desk I guess, as I have no hat I wish to part with.

DougWebb 16y ago

I wonder how much the sites they used biased the results. Google's search results are very F-shaped, for example, and so is any left-to-right language text that is divided into paragraphs with headings. Does the "use an F-shaped pattern" recomendation actually boil down to "display text the way ypu normally would in your language"? If so, that's not nearly as interesting.

jrwoodruff 16y ago
I had the same thought actually. I think what might be more interesting, or at least as interesting, is the flow of how the user looked at the page. What did they look at first, second, etc. The fact that the bottom right corner is barely ever looked at directly is hardly surprising, but seeing how the user processes the page could be interesting, especially with some layouts that are more visual than than search results.
jm3 16y ago
Well for navigation, the F-shaped or "Top-Left" pattern has been a staple of site design for at least 11 years. In 1999, when i started making sites, the sort of nav was considered "boring" because everyone was using it, and our designers often created weird (poorly performing) nav just to buck the trend.

jsm386 16y ago

I have no clue what she based it on, but my fourth grade teacher demanded that her students' booths at the school science fair be positioned so that they were to your left when you walked into the gymnasium. "People look to their left first and they'll look at your projects first." Did she have any basis for this?

potatolicious 16y ago
Not as far as I know. (Western language speaking) People do tend to read from left to right (and up-to-down), but there's no evidence to suggest that this applies to non-linguistic things, especially as basic as the way they look when they enter a room. I had the pleasure of some industrial ergonomics/design courses in college, and IMHO web designers would be wise to look at the decades of research that have gone into that field. Much of it remains relevant even in software/web UI.
- petercooper 16y ago
  there's no evidence to suggest that this applies to non-linguistic things That seemed odd to me just going off (less than scientific) bits and pieces I've read over the years, especially relating to retail design where a popular adage is that "people tend to walk to the right upon entering a store" (so that's where you put the more expensive goodies). But a cliché isn't evidence. So I thought I'd look for stronger citations. And man, it's tough. I haven't found anything on the retail thing yet but there seems to be evidence of preferences for one direction over another in studies. For example: http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2006/12/satisfaction-guaranteed.html http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2006/12/satisfaction... Reading direction appears to have an influence on the ease with which items are detected in different hemispheres: http://pss.sagepub.com/content/16/1/15.abstract http://pss.sagepub.com/content/16/1/15.abstract (and sort of related: http://pss.sagepub.com/content/18/6/487.abstract http://pss.sagepub.com/content/18/6/487.abstract)
nitrogen 16y ago
It's possible that adults with US driver's licenses, having been trained to look left first, then right, when crossing traffic, may do so in pedestrian situations as well (such as entering a crowded gymnasium).