chapter12

Chapter Twelve Response
Team 2: Kris Costello and Rob Spielman

Chapter 12 - Writing Meaningful Links

If you think about it, to a web user, links can be a bit like gambling - you take a chance every time you click on one. Will you get the information you thought you would? How often don't you? Many times I find myself gambling - is this link the one? The way some of them are worded, it's a crapshoot. Talk about a time (and possibly money) waster.

Redish gives terrific suggestions for writing good links. In many ways, links remind me of newspaper headlines. They need to grab the reader's attention and be brief, yet convey the essence of what's to come. Links need to be meaningful. I like Redish's before and after examples in Figures 12-11 and 12-12. I think people are used to seeing those infamous "Click here" links, but when you see the vast improvement in Fig. 12-12, it makes sense to spend a little more time writing better links.

Redish also advices that we not use single nouns, pointing out that 7 to 12 words are most effective. Of course, this depends on your site. Long links aren't always necessary. If you look at [|www.webmd.com] there's a long list of single-word links on the left-hand side of the page. This makes sense for this site. It's easy to find information on a disease or condition in an alphabetical list. The featured health articles are placed in the middle of the page with descriptive and meaningful links.

Alternately, if you look at [] you'll notice the "Click here" and "More" links. They could have used the same amount of words with the descriptive "Directions to the museum" instead of "Click here for directions." And why didn't they simply make links to the titles under "What's Going on BBCM?" It seems so intuitive to do so. As a user of the website, my first inclination is to click on the title assuming it's a link. I find that even though a title isn't underlined on a website, if it's colored, I'm lured to it and hover my cursor over it in anticipation of it changing color and seeing that little pointer finger. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't. Always a gamble.

Besides well-written links, a personal favorite of mine is what Redish describes as making visited links obvious. I'm seeing it more often on websites and am disappointed when it's not used. Like Redish says, who can remember what you've clicked on? It's another waste of time clicking on links you've already visited. I went to [|www.aarp.org] to see how they handle this. Although they used color-change, it's not very prominent, changing from a medium blue to a wee-bit lighter blue text. Considering their older audience, you'd think they'd make visited links much more obvious. Overall, however, I thought their links were meaningful and effective.

My Response:

I have to agree about the click here links. They are on the decline on most professional website, although they do show up once in a while. When I first began to learn and use the web, these were a common addition to many web sites. I didn’t think about them much at the time, but as I grow more familiar with standards in web design, I can see how people with less experience than me can be confused by such links. Not only are they uninformative, but I think their shortness makes them more difficult to see on a web site.

The difference colored links that show where you have been is another very useful tip in creating links. In their example they show how poor color choice would only confuse their main audience. A slight color change would be very hard to see with most web users, especially if their computers show the colors slightly different. Most sites that I have seen that make the link color change successfully use two very different colors that contrast against each other. In this way it is plainly obvious to any user which sites they have gone to and which they have not. Keeping in mind that the original links that the user has not been to stay the standard blue color for links.

The length of link titles seems to be a point that I and the group seem to differ in opinion with Reddish. Seven to ten words seems a bit long to make every link. I feel that if it is clear what the link is for with a shorter phrase or sentence, that it is fine. Of course, as with every other aspect of web design, it is best to test out your link titles with your primary audience. Despite how you may feel on the length of link titles, ultimately it is up to the user to decide.