[Sigia-l] Next article in Opinion (10 of 14)

[Eric Scheid]

I noticed this some time ago but didn't pay it much heed. I've since then
seen it on a couple of other sites, and also note that it hasn't been
dropped from the early adopter sites.

I'm talking about a simple navigation link at the nytimes.com website. At
the top-right and bottom of article pages there is a link with the text
"Next article in Opinion (10 of 14)". It doesn't say what the next article
is, and there is no "Previous article in [section]" link.

This makes it different from a similar but more complex navigation mechanism
present in many blogs: they usually have the article titles in the link, and
they usually provide both "next" and "previous" links. Some blogs even have
"next" and "previous" links within the current category. Like I said: more
complex.

It's a curious mechanism since it provides next to no information scent at
all. Its metaphoric analogue is the act of "turning the page" in the
dead-tree edition of the nytimes.

Although it appears to be useless I have found myself actually using it -- I
finish reading the current article, and then click on to the next. I suspect
this simplicity in conjunction with the analog metaphor is key to its
appeal. It appeals to a lazy browsing approach, a very low cognitive load.
Less effort than scanning a bunch of headlines stuck in a side bar
navigation box, much less than actively clicking back to the section index
page and scanning the headlines there too.

Have you noticed this style of link on newspaper/magazine sites? Do you use
them?

e.