[Sigia-l] length of nav labels

[Jared M. Spool]

Excellent questions. Let me take a stab at trying to answer them.

At 09:02 PM 8/8/2005, Boniface Lau wrote:
> > From: Jared M. Spool
> > Basically, we learned a long time ago that the most effective links
> > are typically 7 to 12 words in length.
>
>Do you have a hypothesis on the 7-12 range?

Yah, I do. 7-12 words is what users need to ensure *their* trigger words 
(not the *designer's* trigger words) are visible. It turns out to be a game 
of probabilities. With less than 7 words, the likelihood that a trigger 
word appears in the link drops substantially.

Now, there are some links that only needs a single word. For example, when 
we tested HP.com for people who needed to download software, the word 
"DRIVERS" worked just fine. Every user we tested found what they wanted 
with that single-word link.

But most links aren't that convenient. They require more words to allow the 
user to succeed better.

>I wonder whether that range depends on context. For example, would the
>most effective navigation bar links have a different range than that
>of the most effective content links?

Not that we can see in our data. In fact, navigation bars traditionally do 
really, really poorly. (To the point where we regularly recommend to 
clients that they drop them from their design.)


> > The important thing is that you have the right *trigger* word in
> > that 7-12 mix. (Taking a five-word link and adding "click here"
> > doesn't make it any better.)
>
>Yes. For navigation bar links, I would go as far as saying that having
>the right trigger words is much more important than sticking to the
>7-12 range. Thus, a one-word link that is a trigger word would be much
>more effective than padding it to a 7-word length with non-trigger
>words (be they "click here" or not).

If you can come up with a complete set of trigger words for your users in 
less than 7 words, I'm all for it. It's just really hard to do for most 
content.

>Furthermore, sticking to the 7-12 range would make most of navigation
>bar links wrapped. That would also lengthen a vertical bar and make it
>more likely to push some links off the screen.

Wrapped navigation bars are not a problem, with clever design. (For a while 
now, we've been experimenting with this on our own site: http://www.uie.com 
.  Don't pay too much attention to what the actual words say -- we realize 
the copy sorta sucks. Instead, notice how we've managed to get several 
lines of text for each navigation element. With clever design, you can do 
all sorts of things.)

> > Wrote more about trigger words here: (Free)
> >
> > >The Right Trigger Words
> > >http://www.uie.com/articles/trigger_words/
>
>That article includes a redesigned Analog Devices page which tested
>very well with users. But a quick glance of the redesigned page
>revealed that only one out of the 60+ links falls into the 7-12 range.

Nicely observed.

Here's one of the neat things we discovered about trigger words: They have 
a cumulative effect on scent.

So, the link "Video Encoders" by itself may or may not have the right scent 
for a given user at a given time. However, if I combine it in a collection 
with other links, I get the cumulative effect I'm talking about:

Digital to Analog Converters >
   D/A Converters
   Audio D/A Converters
   Digital Potentiometers
   Video Encoders

Here, we have 5 links (13 words). They all work together. A user can click 
on a given detail item (such as "Video Encoders") if that resonates with 
them. Or, if the individual links feel right, but don't completely convince 
them, they can click on the header ("Digital to Analog Converters >"). The 
scent of an individual items rubs off on the items around it.

So, when I was talking about 7 to 12 words, I was talking about stand-alone 
links. When we combine them like this, the range gets bigger.

More examples of sites that have made good use of this technique:

http://www.staples.com (Who just released a new site leveraging this 
cumulative effect quite well.)
http://www.bls.gov (Who has progressively gone through several iterations 
of taking advantage of this.)
http://www.mcmaster-carr.com (My all-time favorite. This site tests 
tremendously well with its users and most designers HATE it. I mean, 
visceral, OH-MY-GOD "How could anyone use it" hate it. Yet the users just 
love it, usability tests rock, and site revenues are great.)

Jared

Jared M. Spool
User Interface Engineering
http://www.uie.com    jspool at uie.com

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