User Interface design is not a pure science, primarily because
people's preferences are different. However, there are a few
principles that we've learned over the years: - The eye
naturally gravitates to "power points". i.e. in art it is the
golden rule, and photography it is simplified to "the rule of
thirds". In essence if you drew a grid on your screen three
cells across and three cells down, the points where the lines
intersect are the power points. These are very important real
estate, and it also explains why the 1/3-2/3 split works so
well. - We've learned that there is an order of importance when
we learn to read. In short, the most important column on a the
screen is the one that comes first in reading order. For us
western hemisphere folks, that means the left (left-to-right
reading order). For folks in the middle east and some far
eastern countries that means the right (right-to-left reading
order). For other folks in other far eastern countries that
means the top (top-to-bottom, typically right-to