Convention over Intuition
January 10th, 2008
So, thinking about usability.
There’s no particular intuitive reason why a logo in the header should be a link to the site’s home page. Or on a blog, why the header graphic, which more or less serves as a logo or brand identity for the blog, should be a link to the home page.
Then why do I get frustrated whenever I get to a site where the main header graphic (logo, site name, icon) is not a link back to the main page? (Chris Brogan, this means you, too!)
It doesn’t really matter that there is also a main navigation button saying “Home” right on it. I “intuitively” expect the main graphic or logo in the header to be a link back to the main page.
Note — I said “intuitive”, but it really isn’t. Like I said when I began, there’s no real world analogy which would cause us to think that this would be so. There’s no human DNA or instinct, or even cultural norm (that I can think of), which would cause us to think in terms of what should be hyper-linked and where it should point.
Rather, it’s become convention. A convention so ubiquitous that I think it could be argued that it has become intuitive to believe that the main logo or graphic in a header is also a link to the main page.
I always click on the header graphic or logo, without thinking about it, if I intend to return to the main page. I only look for a “Home” button if this doesn’t work. I admit; it’s ingrained so strongly for me to think that the logo will be the link that I’ll usually click it twice before moving on to look for a “home” link.
In an extreme case, esr’s old blog (I say “old” because the last post was in Summer 2006) did not even have a link of any kind to return to the home page. If you clicked into a single post, you had to either use the back button or (gasp) actually edit the URL in the address bar in order to return to the main page. (Of course, programmers being poor interface designers is a sad-but-true joke as old as computing itself, so perhaps that’s not too surprising.)
So; if the main graphic or logo on your site does not link back to the main page, I would at least encourage you to ask yourself “why not?” Is there some conscious, purposeful, tangible reason why using the logo to link to the main page (even if you already have a “Home” button/link) would be a Bad Thing?
Because if there is no reason not to do it… and if doing it would increase usability for a substantial number of web-surfers… why would you not do that?
Comments welcome!
7 Responses to “Convention over Intuition”
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January 10th, 2008 at 03:28 PM
On http://snapmylife.com we went back and forth but ultimately did NOT link the top logo to home.
In our case we are primarily mobile phone site and that would be one more click with the down arrow on most phones to scroll the page.
The alternative was to not have a “home” text link and just link the logo, but I’m not sure if the logo-to-home convention you mention is that intuitive.
January 10th, 2008 at 03:51 PM
Very interesting. We currently “intuitively” click on the logo/title of a blog, because we have been trained for the last decade or so, to do the same. If today, somehow, all blogs in the world decide to get rid of linking, and made some random, mouse gesture as the way to reach the home page, then in another 5/10 years that would become “intuitive”.
Having said that, one thing that makes most sense to me, is that, in most pages, the largest image (except maybe photoblogs), is the logo. Well, it is atleast the most prominent, and hence, the most logical place to put the most important link on your website, your home link.
January 10th, 2008 at 03:55 PM
I couldn’t help noticing that your ATOM link, is in your “about this blog” page, which takes 2 clicks to reach. How about putting it one the front page?! :)
January 10th, 2008 at 04:35 PM
@shivanand re: the Atom link—ouch! Great point. I’ll be amending that some time today.
@jason It sounds like you put some thought into it, so at that point you just need to do what makes sense. But in most cases, if there’s no reason not to make the logo/site name linkable… then I think it would increase usability to do so, at least marginally.
January 10th, 2008 at 05:24 PM
Jason’s point about the site being primarily intended for mobile devices is a good one, as well; platform could be a significant factor in that sort of decision. My post was (perhaps narrowly) only considering “normal” web surfing on a desktop or laptop screen.
January 16th, 2008 at 11:38 AM
“There’s no particular intuitive reason why a logo in the header should be a link to the site’s home page.” Sure there is.
Actualities don’t arise out of explanations … that we stab at the logo to get to the site’s root indicates a relatively stable fact. That it might take a paragraph or two of good cog-psych to explain it is, well, beside the point.
That such fundamentals are observed or not gives me a good sense of who the site creators really are. What comes to mind in the moment is that when I select a gmail message to read from my NetVibes widget I’m served that message on a page that includes not navigation back to my Inbox … not just a “silo” but a sealed crate. I call that “brain damaged”.
January 17th, 2008 at 08:32 AM
I have to disagree, at least slightly. While I do agree that the main logo or header “should” be a link back to the main page (in general), I think the only reason we expect that is because it’s become convention. (Which was the point of the post, actually.)
The reason I continue to think it arises from convention, that we are trained to expect it, is there is no physical analogue to “clicking” on a hyperlink and “returning” somewhere. E.g., if we’re in an office building, there is no special door in every room, bearing the corporation’s logo, which automatically leads to the lobby.
There’s nothing I can think of, outside the web itself (or maybe certain video games), which could possibly have formed the “idea” that clicking a main logo would return us to the front page.
That said, I’m not sure we actually disagree at all; I agree that looking to the logo to get to the site root has become natural. I just think that the only reason it’s natural is because we’ve seen it done that way for over a decade, now.
In other words, I’m suggesting that my Mom (for example), or anyone who just recently started the internet, will have no reason whatsoever to assume that a logo or header, if clicked, will lead her back to the site’s home. If she continues to use the web, I’m sure she’ll notice that convention and come to expect it, but I don’t think it’s a natural assumption to a person not exposed to the web.
BTW, I’d agree about the Gmail message page; I assume your talking about the gmail view that shows ONLY the message, no navigation? I don’t use Netvibes, but the iGoogle widget does the same thing if you click on a single message. And yes, that is retarded.
Whew. Sorry for the long comment.