Location of navigation menus in websites: an experimental study with Arabic users

Abstract

While Arabic users represent by far the fastest growing language population on the Internet, research about how the peculiarities of Arabic language may shape users' web interactions is still scarce. The preferences of Arabic users for menu location in websites have been studied. Two competing arguments have been proposed regarding the best location of menus in websites: conventional design (navigation menu should be placed on that side where users expect it based on previous experience) and reading direction (navigation menu should be placed on that side where readers are used to start off reading, so that the navigation menu is likely to be attended first). In an experiment, twenty-five participants with Arabic as mother language (who also spoke English) were briefly presented with screenshots from websites presented in Arabic or English and with menus located either on the left or the right, and rated their perceived visual appeal, usability, and trustworthiness. Results showed that participants judged the Arabic websites more positive when menus were located in the right-rather than in the left-hand side. In contrast, no differences for menu location were observed for English websites. These results are discussed in light of the conventional design and reading direction hypothesis and with regard to their implications for the design of Arabic websites.

Incivility in online news and Twitter: effects on attitudes toward scientific topics when reading in a second language

“…For example, 16% of subscribers of the English digital edition of the New York Times are from outside the United States (Peiser, 2019). Accordingly, during the last decade, there has been an increased interest in understanding how bilingual people process information and communicate in online scenarios as a function of the language used (their first, L1, or second language, L2) (Salmerón, Abu Mallouh, & Kammerer, 2017;Tan, Swee, Lim, Detenber, & Alsagoff, 2008;Tse, Yuen, Loh, Lam, & Ng, 2010;Walther, Neubaum, Rösner, Winter, & Krämer, 2018;Yakut & Aydın, 2017).…”

Towards the Right Direction in BiDirectional User Interfaces

“…Most empirical studies related to UI element directionality in BiDi interfaces did not include BiDi users. A notable exception is a study with twenty-five Arabic speaker participants, that has demonstrated a preference for right-hand menus in Arabic websites [55].…”

Exploring Participatory Design Methods to Engage with Arab Communities

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