Which is better for users, a top or left navigation? Web designers have debated this issue for a long time. Many have drawn their own conclusions, but others have mixed feelings. The truth is that there is no absolute answer. When it comes to designing for users, context is king. Show A navigation that works well in one context, may not work as well in another. To figure out which navigation is best for your site, it’s important to understand the different contexts where the top and left navigation work best.  ScanningA left navigation is faster and more efficient for users to scan. In just three visual fixations, users scan six items in the left navigation compared to the three items scanned in the top navigation. The left navigation also facilitates a vertical scanning direction that is natural for people, while the top navigation forces a horizontal scanning direction that people often use when they’re reading. Page SpaceA top navigation conserves more vertical page space than a left navigation. With a left navigation, the navigation links occupy the left column of your page. This shrinks and narrows the content area of your page, which means you will have less space for your content. A top navigation, however, uses minimal vertical space, which allows you to occupy the content area of your page with content only. Item PriorityItems in a top navigation do not have equal weight. The leftmost items carry more visual weight than other items because of its placement in the primary optical area (top left). Items in the top left area get more exposure and are often seen as more important than other items. The items in a left navigation, however, do have equal weight because they are all placed on the left with no other items in its opposing direction on the right. Because users read items from left to right, the priority direction for reading items is stronger horizontally than vertically. VisibilityTop navigation items are more visible because they are always above the fold and are easier to find. Left navigation items are not always above the fold because sometimes if you have too many items, some of them can get pushed below the fold. Top navigations are also easier to find because they are usually accompanied by the header and logo, both of which are visually dominant objects on a web page. Websites with Broad Topics and InterestsThere are strengths and weaknesses with both top and left navigations. Given these different strengths and weaknesses, this implies that the type of navigation that is best suited for your site is dependent on the type of content your site has. If your site produces a variety of content for a widespread audience (e.g. eCommerce sites) then a left navigation containing different topics would be best for your users. Because your users have a range of interests, they’re the ones who decide which items in the navigation are most important to them. Therefore, it’s important to place your items in a left navigation, so that the visual weight and priority of the items are neutral. This lets users decide what’s important to them by allowing them to scan among a broad set of interests. Websites with Specific Topics and InterestsHowever, if your site produces a specific topic of content that’s targeted towards users with a narrow set of interests (e.g. niche websites), you will have certain items with higher priority than others. Because the user’s topic of interest is more limited in this context, placing items in a top navigation allows users to find what they want faster and easier. The ability to scan items isn’t needed here. What’s more important is the ability to spot high priority items quickly. A top navigation allows users to do this more efficiently because leftmost items carry the most visual weight. When it comes to design, there are few absolutes where one approach will be 100% effective all the time for all cases. Finding the approach that is best for you and your users, calls for an understanding of the context involved. If you don’t understand context, you won’t understand user experience design. The ability to easily view and navigate to areas of the CRM is key to improved productivity and user adoption. SuiteCRM has a clear UI which has various elements we will cover in this section. The top navigation menu is the main menu users will use to navigate to modules to create and manage records. The standard layout for the top navigation is a list of 10 modules. The ordering for this menu is determined by the order of the modules in Admin → Display Modules and Subpanels. The top navigation menu has six elements. These are:
To view a module, you can click on the module name. If you have chosen to group the modules, then you first need to hover over the group name and select the module from the list. After selecting the module, you will be taken to the List View of that module. For full details on views, read the Views section of this user guide. Hovering over a module name will produce a drop down menu. This drop down menu displays the Actions and Recently Viewed records for that module. You can edit records displayed in the Recently Viewed section of the drop down menu by clicking the pencil icon. This will direct you to the Edit View for that record. There is also a grouped tab navigation structure for SuiteCRM. Users can set this option in their user preferences. For full details on modifying user preferences, see the Managing User Accounts section of this user guide. The grouped tab navigation menu gives the user the ability to group modules within a tab such as the Sales Tab. You can click the 'create' icon in the top navigation menu to access the Quick Create options. This is a list of commonly used modules with the ability to create new records within these modules from any location. The sidebar is part of the responsive theme and is a user configurable option. The sidebar can be expanded and collapsed by clicking on the button highlighted below. This displays the Actions for the module you are currently viewing. For example, if you are viewing the Accounts module, the actions that display are: Create Account, View Accounts, Import Accounts. This provides you with one-click access to module actions. This section displays the last 10 records you have viewed. This leaves a breadcrumbs trail so that previously viewed records can be quickly and easily accessed via the sidebar. There is also the option to click the pencil icon, which will take you directly to the Edit View of the record. Is top or side navigation better?A side nav might be the best choice. Some products have their commonly used nav patterns. For example in e-commerce, we usually use top nav with a mega menu, which is the best practice for users to find the category they want. What are the benefits of left hand navigation?Using left navigation allows the user to scan vertically, improving speed and reducing visual fixations. It's easier to scale. If your information architecture is formed of many top-level items that can't be categorised into a few buckets, left side navigation is your friend. What are the advantages of sidebar navigation?Pros of Left NavigationEnhanced Scannability: Left navigation aligns with users' natural reading patterns, providing a vertical column that enables quicker scanning and easy location of desired sections. It allows for concise labeling and reduces the need for drop-down menus. What are the three levels of navigation?Levels of navigation. Level 1 (sections) Sections of the site, labelled very generally. ... . Level 2 (sub-sections) Sub-sections of the sections. ... . Level 3 (topics) Pages that contain the bulk of the information by topic. ... . Level 4 (sub-topics) For large topics, divided further into sub-topics.. |
