Washingtonpost.com today debuted a redesigned homepage, a highlight of which is the elimination of the old long left-side navigation column. Instead, navigation is now a horizontal strip up top beneath the Washingtonpost.com nameplate (sometimes called the "flag"). Mouseover the navigation categories to see roll-down menus.
A press release from the site explains: "The adjustment allows for an uncluttered, user-friendly look and the ability to include more news and multimedia content." Washingtonpost.com executive editor
Jim Brady is quoted as saying: "The new design gives us the flexibility to provide more information upfront in a cleaner, more streamlined interface."
I've become a big fan of top-placement navigation for news websites for exactly those reasons. Getting rid of big left-side navigation columns gives site designers more freedom to create compelling, more easily navigable pages. PC screen real estate is limited, so why spend more of it on navigation than you have to? (Yes, I'm aware that we still use left navigation here on Poynter.org.)
Washingtonpost.com's decision is supported by what we
saw in Poynter's
Eyetrack III study of news websites last year. In that eyetracking research, we observed that top navigation drew users' eyes even better than left-side placement.
The design is very clean and well organized...however there are...
