I have two options for displaying content in a right sided slide menu but am having a disagreement with my co-founder on which to use. Neither one of us is a designer but we're trying to figure this out for ourselves (very limited budget).
I want to go with the right-aligned text, no icons because I feel like it's more natural in a right sided slide menu. To me the icons are more of a distraction than providing any real value, it's not clear what any of them mean. When the icons are included my eye seems drawn to the icon, I then have to scan left to find the meaning, which feels unnatural, especially considering the menu is revealed from the right.
His concern is that it's more natural to look top left and scan to the right, even in a right sided slide menu. He also thinks the symmetry looks much cleaner with icons and right aligned makes it look 'Arabic'.
I tried searching but couldn't find any guidelines on this type of menu. I'm often wrong about these kinds of things so I'll go with whatever's recommended.