A few days ago Microsoft launched a new homepage. The major change was moving the navigation from the left hand side to the right hand side of the page. Microsoft have also created something akin to a browser within a browser when using this new navigation too.

The new homepage is less cluttered, most certainly, but is it really easier to use? Microsoft’s reasons for the change and the process they’ve gone through to achieve the new design is well documented on the about page.

So Microsoft follow in the footsteps of Adobe, who for some time now have had their main navigation on the right. Perhaps Apple have got some catching up to do here. Their ‘navigation everywhere approach’ on both left and right and across the top seems very cluttered in comparison. It still works though.

Note that the MIcrosoft changes only apply to the home page. The vast majority of the product pages still have the old style navigation and style. Take the Windows page for example.

The debate about left hand vs. right hand navigation for web pages has been around for a good while now. UIE covered the debate over a year ago and was discussed previously by the Journal of Digital Information.  Web navigation and design has an enormous following and has been covered in many publications. Web patterns though are a slightly newer and less mature field. Patterns, a common term in architecture and software design, refer to well researched and re-usable fields of knowledge typically covering one specific but common aspect. Further information can be found on the IxDA website.

So the influence of blogs and how blogs lay themselves out on screen has started to take a hold on major corporate websites. It seems that the old statement from ‘the father of web usability’ Jakob Nielsen way back in 1999 that “main site navigation has to be on the left hand side of the page” has been blown away.

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