Ideal orientation for Left hand side menu strip

Question

In my web application, we have left hand side menu strip which shows entire menus of applications in side navigation drawer.

we are not sure how to display orientation of this strip. Can someone please suggest ideal orientation from User Experience point of view?

These are my 2 samples-

Sample1:

Sample2:

Also, how do I open menus items from this? On click / On hover?

Answer 1

I find it more convenient to display vertical text as if I was reading it turning my head from the center and leaving the rest of the screen below that text. So that would be:

• Bottom to Top on the Left half of the screen (Sample 2 in your case).
• Top to Bottom on the Right half of the screen.

About opening a Navigation drawer on click or on hover, making it open on click gives the user more control. Opposed to opening it on hover which might happen accidentally when the user is moving the mouse around. A hover micro interaction reinforces that the element will do something on click, and then clicking it opens the drawer.

Answer 2

According to uxmatters:

Research confirms that people can read text with a horizontal orientation the fastest [5]. It has also shown, from a usability standpoint, that it does not matter whether text is rotated to the right or the left—for example, on vertical tabs.

Source: http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2009/01/text-treatment-and-the-user-interface.php

Answer 3

In my experience, I have never made a useful vertical-tabs-setup on mobile views. Unless there are adverts there, I find menus across the bottom of the screen serve usability best.