Side Nav links or tabs at top ?

[Digmen1]

Hi Guys
I am newbie webdesigner, just designing my own websites.

I wondered what members thought about the modern trend in navigation.

Ie either nav links down one side (usually the left had side) or a series of tabs along the top of the screen.

To me it seems that most modern web sites are going the tabs at the top way ? Would you agree.

Also this second method does not seem to lend itself to highlighting the pages that people have visited. Is this no longer considered necessary ?

What do you think ?

[CWebguy]

I use both.

Kind of depends on the "style" of the page you are creating.

Cheers,

[rocknbil]

A search for "usability study" will turn up a lot of results, many of them right here.

I like a lightweight horizontal navigation, top, and redundant links, smaller, bottom. It takes up less real estate and allows your content to go full width, making for a shorter page (no scroll perdition.)

The reason I try to avoid side navigation is because the side links are either too long or too short next to page copy as it varies over your pages, and it prompts you to fret and worry about what to do with that empty space below the ending of the side nav links . . . . I try to eliminate annoyances in development (and in my life) rather than accept them as necessary compromises. :-)

The exception might be a section with many sub-topics, for example, ecommerce site:

............... main site navigation ................... 
... small quick search¦.... content ............ 
.. drill down cat link¦.... content ............ 
...... topic link.....¦.... content ............ 
...... topic link.....¦.... content ............ 
...... topic link.....¦.... content ............ 
...... topic link.....¦.... content ............ 
...... topic link.....¦.... content ............ 
...... topic link.....¦.... content ............ 
...... topic link.....¦.... content ............ 
.. drill down cat link¦.... content ............ 
...... topic link.....¦.... content ............ 
...... topic link.....¦.... content ............ 
...... topic link.....¦.... content ............ 
...... topic link.....¦.... content ............ 
...... topic link.....¦.... content ............ 
...... topic link.....¦.... content ............ 
...... topic link.....¦.... content ............ 
.. drill down cat link¦.... content ............ 
...... topic link.....¦.... content ............ 
...... topic link.....¦.... content ............ 
...... topic link.....¦.... content ............ 
...... topic link.....¦.... content ............ 
...... topic link.....¦.... content ............ 
...... topic link.....¦.... content ............ 
...... topic link.....¦.... content ............ 
................ bottom main navigation ..................... 

Of course, the side nav wouldn't take half the page width, but . . . yeah. :-)