Don’t Be Afraid of the Big Bad Link
Once upon a time there was an impressive web page where sentences and images played among informative paragraphs and semantic structure. It was a pretty image, an isolated field of (X)HTML and CSS with the snippet here and there of JavaScript clover. But, in the limited vision of it’s designer, this was an isolated savannah without any real horizon.
Enter the humble and often under-appreciated hyperlink, a mechanism which glues web pages into a cohesive universe that spans the planet. The hyperlink is sometimes ignored, paled to the background, deprived of significant identification and pummelled into overcrowded navigation hierarchies.
Some designers approach hyperlinks with the abandon of any other graphic design element – a jpg or a horizontal rule. Why? The hyperlink is a foundation of the web itself, not something to be designed around and pushed aside casually. Hyperlinks offer an affordance that they are clickable, that you can follow them to other even more valuable and rewarding resources, they can transport and inform and even archive your visit through a complex information architecture. Hyperlinks have scent and can trigger responses in users beyond a static cloud among whitespace. They are, arguably, the most powerful and primordial design element on a well executed interface.
When you’re playing in the forest of (X)HTML spare a thought for what good design can be for website users. Truely good design embraces this simple mechanism that glues pages and sites together. It encompasses the fuller meaning of the semantic thread of all web documents. Don’t be afraid of the big bad link. A web page without hyperlinks would just be a never visited boring electronic poster.
August 28th, 2008 at 3:29 am
hmmmm, I think your ramblings are pointless. We all know that hyperlinks are important.
August 28th, 2008 at 11:12 am
Interesting take on the post, MikeMike.
My point, which must have gone over your head, was that sometimes graphic design takes over as the primary push in projects, and the meagre hyperlink gets a washed out colour, loses it’s underline, and is made to not even look like a link anymore because they are detracting from the graphic design (aka marketing angle). Please don’t tell me this hasn’t happened anywhere because I have just finished some work on a large gov’t corporate website where that is exactly the issue. And is in fact the ongoing practice.
My point is that hyperlinks aren’t just like any ordinary other feature on a webpage. Designing out the navigation, for example, makes for a pretty picture but not an effective usable web design.
Graphic design of posters versus web design of an interface.
I’m sorry that part went over your head MikeMike. Some people have actually forgotten the value inherent in hyperlinks – they hold meaning, perform function. Any serious web design SHOULD say “look at my hyperlinks”. Its the basis for the web itself.
Yet, still it happens. And happens on gov’t corporate websites, in some instances.
My aim isn’t to please your ear MikeMike, it’s to empty my bucket of bitchiness lol. Like a lot of usability issues the problem is about not realising there’s a problem – your comment adds to my point rather than detracts from it.
I appreciate the feedback. BTW I removed the link back to your site from this comment as I don’t generally like to link to businesses, as a general rule.
August 28th, 2008 at 11:18 am
In fact, the philosophy of that design was stated to me as follows.
“Links don’t need to be underlined, because I know that something is a link when I hover over it”…
So, obviously, not everyone does really understand the value of hyperlinks in web design. It can be easy to get into the habit of designing “pages” as opposed to “experiences”.
August 28th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
[...] comment on Don’t Be Afraid of the Big Bad Link made me step back a little. I do have a tendency to write in the negative – don’t do this, [...]