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I wondering where is the best position to place the menu in the top of the screen to it be visualized and accessed. I think that menus in the left side and near the content are most viewed and accessed that central,right and near of top menus.

My question here is in the top of the screen, where is the place to put the menus? At left, right, center, near the top, near the content, another place?

EDIT: This question is not about top vs left or right, just about top menus.

An example: in this page, "chat, meta, about, faq" are in near the top and in the right. "Questions, Tags, Users, Badges, Unanswered" are in the right too, but near the content.

There is a more visualized position to put the menus on screen?

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    Slightly confused by your question as the title doesn't seem to match the description. Are you asking where to place the menu, or which menu items are most commonly chosen?
    – JonW ♦
    Apr 13, 2012 at 10:48
  • @JonW I simplified the description. My question is where to put the menu to it be used.
    – Renato Dinhani
    Apr 13, 2012 at 11:06

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There's plenty of reading material on navigation menu positioning on the web. In short: It doesn't really matter if it's horizontal or vertical, just make sure it's visible and consistent. As far as positioning goes: Top left seems to work best for languages that are read left to right.

Reading material:

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  • Thank you for the links, I will read they, but clarifying one thing, I'm talking only about top menus. Example: this page has two top menus (chat, meta, about, faq) that is in the right and near the top, and other (questions, tags, users,...) in right, but near the content.
    – Renato Dinhani
    Apr 13, 2012 at 12:04
  • Hm sorry, apparently I still don't really understand your question. Are you talking about utility navigation vs. main navigation? Or position of the utility navigation? Or neither..?
    – Phil
    Apr 13, 2012 at 12:16
  • The position of top navigation menus.
    – Renato Dinhani
    Apr 13, 2012 at 12:27
  • Ok that's easy: Main navigation on the left, utility navigation on the right is the standard pattern and if there isn't a good reason to do it differently, I wouldn't change it.
    – Phil
    Apr 13, 2012 at 12:44
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Normally, a menu is not a call-to-action element, it doesn't need to catch the users' attention. It needs to be visible and usable, so that a user who already wishes to use the menu can quickly locate and use it, but playing around with its location in an attempt to make it as conspicuous as possible is not a good approach - if there's an item on the menu that you'd like the user to click on, create a call-to-action element that takes them there.

So in terms of discoverability, it doesn't matter much whether you align your top menu to the left, right or center. Yes, probably a left alignment would be marginally more efficient with all other factors being equal, but that's not what should guide you. This will be determined mostly by the graphical design, not the location of the menu.

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