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 Idea Archives
July 2004 Previous Posts |
Avoid redundant links Monday, January 31, 2005 Sometimes you might be tempted to provide 2 or 3 links to the same intranet page, just to make sure users see it. For example, on Big White's home page, there's 4 different ways to get to the snow report. Don't do this. Here's why:1. It's confusing. Users rarely understand that the links are duplicates. They'll stare at all the links, trying to decipher the difference between "Weather", "Mountain Report" and "Daily Snow Report". 2. It slows users down. More links increases the number of micro-decisions your users have to make, slowing them down. Or they might waste time visiting the same page twice. (See a related study.) 3. It clutters the page. Screen real estate is precious, and web designers are always trying to figure out how to simplify things. Stripping away redundant links reduces clutter. You know the KISS principle: Keep it simple, stupid. Avoid complexity by never repeating a link on the same page. About the Author I'm Chris McGrath, an intranet consultant in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. I've been working on intranets since 1997, and on plain ol' web sites for even longer. I run One Intranets, the firm that co-created ThoughtFarmer -- an enterprise collaboration platform for Windows-based intranets. |
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