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up vote 3 down vote favorite

1) Vertically On home page with logo and footer and then at bottom of each page

see on iphone http://j.mp/qpbN1A

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2) Or horizontally like desktop websites

see on iphone http://stackoverflow.com

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3) or vertically at bottom of home page and each inside page along with other elements

see on iphone http://bagcheck.com/ it's a website of well known UX Guy Luke Wroblewski

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4  
It depends how many options you have and how many are important. The horizontal option is great if you only have a handful of options as it uses very little valuable space. However if you have a significant number of items it becomes cumbersome, especially as the horizontal buttons should be fairly large. – Ben Brocka♦ Sep 13 '11 at 12:43
Because I can't read the language of the first example, it's not clear to me which elements of that interface are the content, and which are the navigation controls. I suspect this will apply to others, too. Do you have an English-language alternative to the first example? – Jimmy Breck-McKye Sep 13 '11 at 12:43
@ Jimmy Breck-McKye - it's primary navigation of websites – Jitendra Vyas Sep 13 '11 at 12:58
@SirTapTap - DO you think last one is good. the page has long scroll in phone and Navigation at bottom. – Jitendra Vyas Sep 13 '11 at 12:59
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@Jitendra Vyas my problem with that style is I have to hit the bottom before I get navigation; with a long page that could be annoying, but it depends what is at the bottom. A footer like that is a great place for "More/related articles" ect. If it has frequently used navigational elements I would prefer it at the top. – Ben Brocka♦ Sep 13 '11 at 13:30

3 Answers

up vote 2 down vote accepted

Top links are the most common, but you must take into account that a menu like that can get really hard to tap on small devices and that it could get messy when adding more elements.

Two alternatives are either adding a dropdown menu at the top (with all of the options of course) or adding a nav/more button that would show the vertical menu list (too many clicks IMO)

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up vote 1 down vote

I prefer the top because that is the web convention I am used to, first horizontally then virtually (the latter being more realistic for larger menus).

I also suggest top is best for a homepage because return users are likely to land there even when they intend to go straight to another page because it is hard to type a full url on a mobile device.

This may be just me however, see what the experts say...

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up vote 1 down vote

Brad Frost wrote a great round-up of mobile navigation patters recently. It's focused on responsive design, but the patterns could be employed more generally.

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3  
Hi Travis. Can you reference the particular aspects of this article that are relevant to the OP question, and also why they are appropriate rather than just supplying a link to a blog page? – JonW♦ Mar 7 '12 at 16:09

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