Write Clear Text and Messages 587 Writing Link Labels

Step 8: Write Clear Text and Messages 587 Writing Link Labels

Create meaningful labels that use the following: –– Descriptive, differentiable, predictive, and active wording. –– Keywords positioned at the beginning. –– Content that is concise but long enough to be understood. –– Wording that clearly indicates link destination or resulting action. –– Link names that match with their destination page.

Integrate embedded links smoothly into the text.

Ensure that embedded links are descriptive. –– Make only a few words the active link. –– Do not spread links over two lines.

Standalone links should not exceed one sentence in length.

Provide glosses or link labels to assist link understanding.

Meaningful labels. The success of a link is determined by how well the user can

predict where the link leads. Link differentiability and descriptiveness aids pre- diction. Understanding of a link’s purpose reduces disorientation, because irrele- vant links are less likely to be followed. Link text should clearly communicate the link’s nature and purpose, and contain enough information to let users decide whether or not to follow it. The links of the best-rated Web sites are textual and descriptive, letting the user know what to expect.

People should be able to quickly scan a link label and comprehend what will

be found on the link’s destination page. Locating a link’s keyword, or most rele- vant word, at the beginning aids scanning. LeDoux et. al (2005) studied the “cau- tious clicking” behavior of older adults and found that adding action words such as “Go to” and “View” to link labels helped understanding and performance. Similar improvements were found for users of all ages.

Create links that are concise and to the point, avoiding wordiness. Generally, a link has to strike a proper balance between enough words to make it descriptive and differentiable, and few enough words to make it most easily readable and leg- ible. Underlining causes slow reading of text. So, the length of a link will involve trade-offs. A one-word link may not provide enough information about the desti- nation; a link of several or more words may be difficult to read quickly. One study, as reported by Koyani et al. (2004), found that links of nine or ten words elicited better performance than shorter or longer links. In general it is best that text links do not wrap, extending to two lines. Remember to create link labels that are con- sistent with the destination page title or heading. Poorly titled pages make using the Back Button/Browser History harder (Cockburn et al., 2002).

Avoid repeating the same exact label on successive pages if the links lead to different destinations. Also avoid similar labels to avoid confusion. As previously mentioned, the success of the link will be dependent on how well the user can predict where the link will lead. Descriptiveness aids prediction. People with a broad range of needs and interests will use Web sites.

588 Part 2: The User Interface Design Process

most relevant words or phrase as the active link. Embedded links should also exactly describe the link’s destination. People often ignore the text surrounding an embedded link (Koyani et al., 2004), so the link must stand by itself. Clues to the destination content should not be placed within the embedded link’s sur- rounding text. Embedded links must not be continued over two lines. They may

be mistaken for two links. Standalone links . Standalone links should not exceed one sentence in length. Glosses or link labels. Glosses or tooltips are short phrases of information that pop

up when a pointer is placed close to a link. It provides a more thorough preview of the information on the destination page. Baker et al., (2002) found that pre- senting short summaries with text links helps users understand and predict the content associated with the link. LeDoux et al., (2005), in his study of older users, found that an option to turn on a one- or two-sentence summary also improved usability. People actually spent less time reading the summary than they did pon- dering what a link was for if no pop-up existed. Summaries need not, of course,

be presented in glosses but can appear on the Web page itself. Glosses should not

be relied on to compensate for poor label design. Glosses/tooltips are discussed in more detail in Step 7. Link label writing guidelines are provided in the follow- ing section.

Examples of proper link writing are shown in Figure 8.4. Placing links in headings always make them easier to find.