{"id":40116,"date":"2016-10-21T05:09:55","date_gmt":"2016-10-21T12:09:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/creativemarket.com\/blog\/?p=40116"},"modified":"2024-04-12T02:57:07","modified_gmt":"2024-04-12T09:57:07","slug":"logo-placement-web-design","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/creativemarket.com\/blog\/logo-placement-web-design","title":{"rendered":"Where Should You Place Your Logo on Your Homepage? Science Gives the Answer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ever wondered how designers decide (if they spend time thinking about it at all) on placement of a brand’s logo on the homepage of a website? The logo<\/a> usually serves as a way to help you find yourself back to the homepage in an instant, no matter on what webpage of the site you find yourself after some navigation.\nYou’ve probably seen the logo in three places on a page: on the left, in the center, and on the right (which would be really unorthodox).\nToday, I’m going to focus on left-aligned logos versus centered logos and how this seemingly “small†change in placement can have a massive impact on the site’s user experience.\n

<\/span>Left-aligned or Centered—What Does the Research Say?<\/span><\/h2>

\nIf we just go by perception, you’ll probably find an equal number of people who believe a logo on the left side of a page is just as helpful to UX<\/a> as one in the center. That’s why we’re going to settle this once and for all by turning to the research.\nFor an answer on this, we turn to UX and design experts at the Nielsen Norman Group. In a recent study, they concluded without a shadow of a doubt that centered logos hurt site navigation<\/a>. Not that they impede navigation a bit…or suggest to designers that they should reconsider logo placement…but that they all-out degraded usability and navigation!\nThe study author recommends that all logos on a site should lean left.\nThis may come as a surprise to some, as placing anything in the center of a page—you’d think, anyway—would make it easier to see. After all, it’s right there, in the middle, staring you in the face.\nHowever, consider two, contrary reasons:\n1) We consistently read from left<\/em> to right (at least in the west and parts of Asia)\n2) Traditionally, logos have always been positioned on the left-hand side of pages\nTaking these into consideration, it’s no surprise that the study found that participants had much less success getting back to the homepage in just one click if the logo was in the center of a page.\n<\/p>

<\/span>What This Means for Design<\/span><\/h2>

\nDesigners should be placing logos on the left-hand side of a page. This goes for all pages. If you don’t, users will have serious problems<\/a> getting back to the homepage and essentially finding their way back to the starting point of the site.\nThat makes for horrendous UX. The rule of thumb in web design is to always design with the user’s sensibilities in mind before anything else, so even something as seemingly insignificant as a logo can have serious repercussions on how the design of a site impacts usability.\nAnd when users have a hard time finding their way around a site, bad things usually happen<\/a>, such as:\n<\/p>