Link annotations

[Beth Phillips]

Julie,
Jared Spool et al of User Interface Engineering (UIE) have done research
on link predictability. I think this is even covered in his book "Web
Site Usability" and probably in his reports. I know I have heard him
present on this. UIE does a lot of research on users' prediction rates
based on link differentiation. One of their recommendations is to
annotate links. Here's an excerpt from his book discussing this:
http://world.std.com/~uieweb/bookexpt.htm

You're not to close to the issue. Most users prefer to know what they'll
find before going.

I do know that you need to balance the clutter of the interface layout
with the burden of learning for the user. If users can't predict where
to navigate, they are less likely to find the resources you have
presented. Infrequent, sporadic and new users are not able to adequate
"learn" mysterious navigation paths from pages with an abundance of
links.

I have designed numerous library web interfaces in the corporate setting
and we frequently used qualitative annotations when appropriate to let
the user know what they would get before they arrived. When in doubt,
test it with your users, asking them to answer questions or perform
tasks using your web site. When they can't find an answer, you'll know
there isn't enough information presented.

Beth Phillips
bphillips at ll.mit.edu






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