I also notice this “pull” you're describing. Comes to mind: In comic layout design, elements we want to draw attention to are supposed to stand out from the rest of the panel content. (
Aaron Diaz describes this here, e.g. see
this comic. Warning, other posts on that blog may be NSFW.) Our left menu sticks out distinctly the same way, esp. the active navigation item which has a highlight to it and is just a single rectangle poking out of the side of the content like a flag. —
doppelgreener 2 hours ago