I recently read an interesting article by Roth, Schmutz and others about ‘Mental models for web objects’. In the main part of the study, the authors asked 516 participants to construct prototypes for what they thought typical for a company website, a news site and a webshop.
The results describe very ‘normal’ websites. Most people expect a logo in the top left corner. A navigation menu is placed left or above the main content. Login fields are expected in the top right corner (for the news website and the webshop, that is; for the company website 77% of the participants did not include a login field). Webshops have shopping carts and no archives; company websites show no advertisements.
The study also compared the web design experts in the group with the laypeople. For most objects, the two groups agreed on the placement (which is a good sign I believe). However, there were a few notable exceptions: ‘external links’ and ‘newsletters’ were placed on the left by the laypeople but on the right by the experts; in the webshop the laypeople expected ‘contact’ to be on the left, where the experts placed it in the top right corner.
It’s good to see that this kind of research is done. It offers a little insight in the mental models your users may have. Expectations and unwritten standards can constantly keep changing, but it’s nice to have some information about what your general audience may expect. If you wish to place your logo somewhere else than top-left, now you’ll have to ask yourself critically if you have a reason.
Roth, S., Schmutz, P., Pauwels, S., Bargas-Avila, J., & Opwis, K. (2010). Mental models for web objects: Where do users expect to find the most frequent objects in online shops, news portals, and company web pages? Interacting with Computers, 22 (2), 140-152 DOI: 10.1016/j.intcom.2009.10.004
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