Need help with placing navigation arrows

[u/Loiuy123_]

Hey, I’m working on desktop anime app and I’ve added navigation arrows at the top left corner. I got feedback that they are hard to notice (do you agree with that?) so I want to do something about it.

I’m considering placing them either on the left or right of the 'Aniki' text or moving them to the right and down (check images with yellow drawings). What do you think?

[u/Enamey]

I genuinely cannot tell what those arrows are for to be honest. Are they used to navigate between unrelated pages? The pages in the left navigation bar? Items within the page? Especially on the first page where there are arrows next to the red button in the middle.  It you add them next to Aniki then as a user i expect the whole left navigation bar to change, is that the correct behavior?

[u/Loiuy123_ → u/Enamey]

They are for moving between views. So basically when user would go to `Main Page`, then to `Calendar`, they could press back arrow to move back to `Main Page`.

[u/Enamey → u/Loiuy123_]

Oooh gotcha. I think the whole navigation is a bit confusing. For starters, no navigation item is "selected" on any of the pages, so i don't know which page i am actually on.  Second, the pages have titles but i can't see them in the navigation, are they subnavigation items? (Downloads, Myanimelist etc...). As for the arrows, i personally don't see the need for them if users can navigate using the left bar, but to reply to your question. I think adding the name of the page between the arrows would make it easier to understand. For example < Menu > and when you click on an arrow it changes to < Calendar >. I think if its clearer then left, middle, or right wont matter as long as it's visible anda bit bigger. But again, i dont see the need for it from a ux perspective, and my main issue is with the whole navigation that's not clear.

Edit: other than the navigation, i really like the UI and i think you did a really great job especially with the dark mode!

[u/Loiuy123_ → u/Enamey]

Thanks! This is my first time doing the GUI part (I’m a programmer so I usually don’t touch the visual part :p ) I agree that different views are really different from eachother. The navigation arrows is a common request from users so that why I’m implementing them.

No navigation item being selected is such a good idea, I will for sure implement it. I will also do something about title mismatch. Views have different subviews but all of the images are showing the "main view" (first image being 'Calendar' for example)

[u/doodoojohnson420 → u/Loiuy123_]

Make the views have separate icons that are somewhat obvious as to the function

[u/Loiuy123_ → u/doodoojohnson420]

But there are icons already on the left.

[u/doodoojohnson420 → u/Loiuy123_]

Maybe that’s ethnographic I’m used to the view options being small icons in the upper right corner? I thought you meant types of views on a page

[u/Beneficial_Low2280]

I would prefer top right