Trobby
2010-01-21, 04:13 PM
Recently I posted this on a Masters-level course in Advanced Web Design. To me, this is the most important concept to understand when designing for the web.
Three years ago, I took a class in web site design from an adjunct professor. His name was Andrew Sabol, and he basically taught me everything I know about designing for the web. I mention this because I want to properly accredit this concept, and while I do not think he founded the idea, he is the source that I remember at the moment, and so I will be citing him when I say that the shortness of a user's memory, in general, will hold for approximately three clicks.
"What is a click?", you are probably wondering by now. Well, every time you navigate away from a page on a website by clicking on a hyperlink, you are clicking away from that page. Therefore, a "click" is whenever the user clicks on one link to visit a new page.
Users, as it turns out, usually DO know what they want out of a site, and visit it looking for one specific item of information. For the purpose if this concept, we will ignore the google search they had to perform to reach a site, and say that as soon as they reach the home page, they are at "zero clicks". When a user visits the site, they will ideally see exactly what they are looking for on the front page, either on-display such as when they are looking for the current day's edition of a web comic, or within one of the first hyperlinks that are on the site. If not, they should be able to narrow it down to the categories of hyperlink given within that first page, one "click" away, and then ideally, pinpoint the information they are looking for within the next two clicks.
The idea here is that a web site is essentially a data tree, with all the information branching off from the top (your home page), and getting more specific as it goes down. Every link off of your home page should be a link relevant to a general interest from the users, and on the page after that, every user should be able to find the information they seek, either archived within that one page, or further specified and then only one click away. Asking the user to go much further than that into your page would be testing the limits of their patience. By then, it would be easier for them to just start another Google search and find a web site that has the information on the front page.
It's not hard to know what your users want, either. All you have to do is imagine that you yourself are a user who has never visited your site before, and imagine the process you would go through to find an obscure piece of information on your page. If you cannot find it within three clicks, you may need to reorganize your web page, or maybe try to cover a smaller range of ideas.
I hope this makes sense to the rest of you. Keep in mind that "Three clicks" is an approximation. Some users will continue to dig well beyond that, and some will be even less patient!
Three years ago, I took a class in web site design from an adjunct professor. His name was Andrew Sabol, and he basically taught me everything I know about designing for the web. I mention this because I want to properly accredit this concept, and while I do not think he founded the idea, he is the source that I remember at the moment, and so I will be citing him when I say that the shortness of a user's memory, in general, will hold for approximately three clicks.
"What is a click?", you are probably wondering by now. Well, every time you navigate away from a page on a website by clicking on a hyperlink, you are clicking away from that page. Therefore, a "click" is whenever the user clicks on one link to visit a new page.
Users, as it turns out, usually DO know what they want out of a site, and visit it looking for one specific item of information. For the purpose if this concept, we will ignore the google search they had to perform to reach a site, and say that as soon as they reach the home page, they are at "zero clicks". When a user visits the site, they will ideally see exactly what they are looking for on the front page, either on-display such as when they are looking for the current day's edition of a web comic, or within one of the first hyperlinks that are on the site. If not, they should be able to narrow it down to the categories of hyperlink given within that first page, one "click" away, and then ideally, pinpoint the information they are looking for within the next two clicks.
The idea here is that a web site is essentially a data tree, with all the information branching off from the top (your home page), and getting more specific as it goes down. Every link off of your home page should be a link relevant to a general interest from the users, and on the page after that, every user should be able to find the information they seek, either archived within that one page, or further specified and then only one click away. Asking the user to go much further than that into your page would be testing the limits of their patience. By then, it would be easier for them to just start another Google search and find a web site that has the information on the front page.
It's not hard to know what your users want, either. All you have to do is imagine that you yourself are a user who has never visited your site before, and imagine the process you would go through to find an obscure piece of information on your page. If you cannot find it within three clicks, you may need to reorganize your web page, or maybe try to cover a smaller range of ideas.
I hope this makes sense to the rest of you. Keep in mind that "Three clicks" is an approximation. Some users will continue to dig well beyond that, and some will be even less patient!