Opinion needed... What layout is more user friendly, Aligned to the left or centered?

[vistamaster]

Hi, I just visited few different websites some of them were aligned to the left, some centered.

So my general question would be for everyone, would my site be more user-friendly aligned to the left or should I leave as it is - centered?


All and every, whether it is general or specific feedbacks are welcome

Regards,
Rytis

[Duncan Rounding]

Centered for me every time.

[vistamaster]

Thanks Duncan, anyone else?

[Rich Brady]

Centered for me every time.

I agree, I never understand sites that have so much space on the right. Even it out.

[Golf Tee Warehouse]

I prefer the centered one better.

[TraceyHand]

I think a lot of left aligned ones are 'leftovers' from the day when they were all made to fit the standard screen sizes and so nothing was aligned at all.
Then, as larger screen sizes became more common (and a large variation of them) these sites tended to sit on the left by default rather than design.
I think newer sites tend to be centered and look much better that way.
JMO, obviously

[vistamaster]

Thank you guys for being active, it looks like the layout will stay centered

[Darren B]

I have been nagging my supplier for ages about this one http://www.wind-designs.com/ i even gave them the code to change it, hardly ground breaking.

would you believe this site has only just been designed for them (a few months ago in v7) now they have taken the step and upgraded themselves to v9.

[vistamaster]

I have been nagging my supplier for ages about this one http://www.wind-designs.com/ i even gave them the code to change it, hardly ground breaking.

That's it, now i'm surely going to leave it centered.

On that site I spent around 20 mins just going through the stuff, trialing user-experience, and now i'm 100% sure that centered layout is a must for todays website.

would you believe this site has only just been designed for them (a few months ago in v7) now they have taken the step and upgraded themselves to v9.

What's made them to upgrade? Complaints, bugs, Actinic Sales Staff etc. etc.?

[brian.mc]

I would go for centered every time

[Darren B]

What's made them to upgrade? Complaints, bugs, Actinic Sales Staff etc. etc.?

They want to manage it themselves, i told them the 1st thing was to upgrade it as V7 wont be supported, and it looks s**t left aligned. Obviously this has fell on deaf ears. I shall nag them again next time i call. Actually the person doing it is still very new to it but im sure they will change it.

[Benjamin Dyer]

Sorry, just spotted this thread (been kinda busy dont you know).

I agree with the consensus here, center aligned tends to work better for me. However, its worth doing some research, however expert we all are every site is different.

The BBC ran the news site in three different layouts before deciding on the central approach, there was a white paper floating about about it, if I can find it I'll send it over.

You could also consider running some analysis with some heat map software and tweaking the layout accordingly.

I haven't used this one but it looks good:

http://www.clickdensity.com/

[Darren B]

Human nature draws your eyes to the top right, advertising space in news papers is always better on the right hand page.

For an idea on what works, look around you, the big boys spend there money on this stuff. Look were the offers are placed on pages, not that i have given it much thought to my sites, perhaps its time to see what happens.

One to remember - Colours the eye can only process 3 colours at once. Obviously it sees more but that's why sites with lots of different colours are hard on the eye.