Currently our navigational header is mostly left side and central of page, account is on upper right. A proposed design shows the account moved down, into the main nav bar. There's some space in between account and the nav elements, but not too much.
A few initial thoughts:
- Real estate issues with length of name and navigational elements
- Creates visual problem for user - having it upper right (or left) visually shows IA, this would not.
- What I've seen is that the upper right or left placement of login/account is conventional. In line with navigational elements is not. Only site I've seen that does this is Amazon.com... but then again, it's Amazon.