I assume the F-shape pattern is only effective in languages that read left-to-right?
The fact that the bottom right corner is barely ever looked at directly is hardly surprising, but seeing how the user processes the page could be interesting, especially with some layouts that are more visual than than search results.
In 1999, when i started making sites, the sort of nav was considered "boring" because everyone was using it, and our designers often created weird (poorly performing) nav just to buck the trend.
"...for sites that are traditionally read from left to right, placing important design components at the left is a good idea; vice versa for sites whose language is read from right to left."
What about languages that are read top-to-bottom first?
Did she have any basis for this?
I had the pleasure of some industrial ergonomics/design courses in college, and IMHO web designers would be wise to look at the decades of research that have gone into that field. Much of it remains relevant even in software/web UI.
That seemed odd to me just going off (less than scientific) bits and pieces I've read over the years, especially relating to retail design where a popular adage is that "people tend to walk to the right upon entering a store" (so that's where you put the more expensive goodies).
But a cliché isn't evidence. So I thought I'd look for stronger citations. And man, it's tough. I haven't found anything on the retail thing yet but there seems to be evidence of preferences for one direction over another in studies. For example: http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2006/12/satisfaction...
Reading direction appears to have an influence on the ease with which items are detected in different hemispheres: http://pss.sagepub.com/content/16/1/15.abstract (and sort of related: http://pss.sagepub.com/content/18/6/487.abstract)