Home or Homeless?
January 3, 2007, 10:00 PM | 4 Comments
Earlier this week a few colleagues and I were discussing the merits of having (or not having) a “home” link in a site’s main navigation. More specifically we discussed whether or not the now standard practice of linking a website’s logo back to the home page is a good enough substitute for not having a specifically labeled home link. We ended up having a fairly good dialogue in which several opinions and points were raised, but I thought I’d take it one step further and open up the topic for discussion here.
Until that conversation I’d honestly never given the matter much thought, but I’ve almost always included a home link by force of habit. After discussing it for a little while, I discovered my feelings on the issue are somewhat indifferent. If forced to make an actual decision on the matter though, I’d have to say that I think that a site’s navigation is better and easier to use with a distinct link to the home page than without.
The main reason I think the home link should be included is strictly from a usability standpoint. First, I think that a site’s home page is a distinct area of a site and therefore should have a place in its navigation. Secondly, even if the site’s logo is linked to the home page (which it probably should be considering it’s now expected across the board*) I don’t think that’s really enough. Often times, the logo of a site is in a different area of its design (or even its source) than its navigation is. Because that link to the home page is a navigation item, it just makes sense to have it grouped with the rest of the navigation. Whether you call the item “Home”, “Main” or anything else signifying the default page is trivial, but it should probably be there nonetheless.
Anyways, my thought was that most “regular” users who are visiting a site are not aware of the fact that clicking on a site’s logo will actually return them to the home page. After doing a quick poll of few regular type people, I found that their general response was to “click the back button” or look for a home link to get back to the home page. Every time I mentioned clicking on a site’s logo the response I got was the same: “I didn’t know you could do that.”
So what do you think? Should there be an explicit home link in a site’s navigation? Go ahead and ask your parents, non-geeky friends, or other “regular” users that you know what they would do to get back to a site’s home page, you’ll probably be surprised at some of the responses, not that it’s a bad thing at all. As web professionals we tend to get accustomed to certain conventions and get the idea that everyone shares this common knowledge, but that’s simply not the case. Sometimes it’s good It’s always good to review our assumptions and make sure we stay tuned to how the average internet user is using the sites we create.
* I did my research for this post when I was about half way done writing it and apparently the practice is only “expected across the board” by those in web development circles.
Posted in: Web Development
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Comments
1. Graeme - January 4, 2007, 1:27 AM
Always good practice I’d say. More habit than thought though, for me at least anyway. I was thinking more for the ‘internet newbies’; having a home link directs them straight to where they want to go, rather have them search the entire page on how to get back!
2. matthijs - January 4, 2007, 2:59 AM
My guess is that for many people only a logo linking to the homepage is not enough. I don’t know the exact figures, but I think there will be many who will be confused or not be able to find their way back to the homepage without that link or without using the back button.
If you look at the way many “non-technical” people use their browsers, that’s no surprise. For example, I have seen a lot of people clicking the close-button (the little cross) of their browser and then 2 minutes later being surprised that their internetpage is gone when they re-open their browser..
That may seem like an extreme example, but it shows how big the difference can be between what we regular or heavy users find normal and what your average user knows about how to interact with software/websites.
3. Jonathan Eckmier - January 4, 2007, 12:38 PM
Graeme: Exactly! Actually, when I was talking to someone about what they would do to go back to the home page, they mentioned to me that they’d just been looking around for a home button for the last five minutes or so. Not many people have that kind of attention span though.
Matthijs:
That may seem like an extreme example, but it shows how big the difference can be between what we regular or heavy users find normal and what your average user knows about how to interact with software/websites.
Exactly my point, many times we don’t stop to think about whether the practices we write off as “normal” actually are normal.
4. Tarellel - January 24, 2007, 3:20 AM
I also have done various research in this area. At my college in my Web and Multimedia class, we had to go around asking people about various aspects of website navigation. And the majority of them said that they generally expect every site to have a Home/Main link, as well as having contact and page links as well. And very limited number suggested that sites have their logo linked. The statistics we came up with were pretty amazing and pretty much a backing of your idea.
Plus its kind of a norm now, if it wasn’t there average users wouldn’t know where to go.