Couldn't agree more with the article, I've been pushing 'friendly' URLs in my day job for around 18 months and it's been a success, both clients and developers prefer producing sites where the technology is hidden away.
There's no reason for a CMS system to produce long, ugly URLs.

Posted by: Matt Round on September 26, 2002 04:44 AM

 

One of my favorite URL's: http://webword.com/moving/crap.html

Posted by: Mac on September 26, 2002 05:06 AM

 

I ain't buying it. Until I see from usability tests that people - non webby, non techhie, Joe-who's-a-machinist-by-trade-and-uses-the-web-a-half-hour-a-day kind of people even bother to look at a URL much less try to glean any valuable info about site structure or anything else from it, I ain't buying it.

"Only techie people glean information about the structure of a site by examining the words between all those forward slashes. "
http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/us-tricks/?dwzone=usability

Posted by: Mike on September 26, 2002 08:02 AM

 

I agree that URLs should be as short as possible, but I don't buy the notion that ordinary mortals hack 'em up like we tend to do.

First of all, is something supposedly user-friendly like "http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/09/
business/media/09DEAL.html" really that easy to remember? If you went to that story and read it, would you remember it in your head the next time you wanted to check it out again? I don't think so.

JJG does an apples to oranges comparison. He compares a directory URL like http://microsoft.com/visio to page URLs. It's nice to have www.example.com/jobs lead to the jobs section, but beyond the first level, I wouldn't care. Page URLs generally do NOT lend themselves to be very memorable. There's no way in hell I'll remember http://www.macromedia.com/software/
dreamweaver/productinfo/product_overview/ or EVER "guess" it. No bloody way. I'll add it to my bookmarks.

I don't understand this line:
But in our imperfect world, users have come to depend on URLs to communicate key information as they navigate through the Web.

Yes, the URL gives me an idea of what the page is about, but chances are that if I've navigated my way to that page, I already know where I am, assuming, of course, that the site has been well-designed. ;)

And reading URLs out on the phone? Goodness, don't we use email any more? :D

URLs need to be short so they don't split into multiple lines in my email client. That's about all I can think of. I'll bet any money that the average bloke doesn't do "URL hacking" like Webword readers would. Besides, URL hacking is usually done when we geeks can't find a better way of navigating to another page on a site.

I'm waiting for Ron Zeno's rating for this article. :)

Posted by: MadMan on September 26, 2002 10:42 AM

 

Interesting topic, but I also agree that average users (whoever *they* are) don't pay attention to URLs. Heck, for some strange reason, every time I launch IE in my new WindowsXP OS, it comes up without the Status Bar by default. What's up with that?

Posted by: boysen on September 26, 2002 03:08 PM

 

Your minds are locked on present day. Think 10 years from now, or if you're the skeptical sort, 30 years from now. The vast majority of people will be sophisticated in maneuvering through the online world. Should we ignore URL construction because people are inexperienced, or plan and do what we know is right today so that it benefits everyone tomorrow?

If we continue to ignore URL construction, your assumptions will prove true. No one will hack URLs because they will be so complex that trying would be a waste of time. You shape the future today.

Posted by: Jack on September 26, 2002 04:41 PM

 

Yea, and?

Surely 10 years from now we'll not *have* to worry about URL hacking for anything?

When I can, I do structure sites such that the URL's make sense. But more for the fact that doing so makes the site easier to maintain on the backside.

Regardless, I don't for one minute believe that navigation by URL will ever be desireable or even possible.

Posted by: Mike on September 26, 2002 05:56 PM

 

Ohhh, ok, technology will solve all our problems in the future. No worries. Stop planning for tomorrow.

Posted by: Jack on September 26, 2002 08:00 PM

 

Umm..ya know I'm not one to put my faith in technology either.

But I just can't help but think that if, 10 years down the road, we (and we meaning the public at large, not us browser-heads) still need URL hacking for *anything* then all this fuss and bother over user-centered design and usability testing will have ultimately failed.

Especially when you listen to the true geeks talk about all the alternative ways of accessing the web. Sure would be a pain to hack a URL if it filled the entire sceen on my 'net enabled wrist watch...:)

Posted by: Mike on September 26, 2002 09:41 PM

 

Design Not Found has a snapshot about URL "design." Worth a look (as is everything at Design Not Found).

Posted by: Brian on September 26, 2002 10:52 PM

 

I agree that companies like Apple and MS need to pay great attention to the design of their URLs. But they have peculiar audiences.

I still don't buy that this is a mainstream issue. Support it if you can, but pay much more attention to the design of your UI and the nav that most people are going to use.

Posted by: Mike on September 27, 2002 09:01 AM

 

Exact-o-mundo, Mike. :)

If all your users have to find their way around is a URL, then I'd say you have much larger issues. Like a pretty useless site navigation.

Posted by: MadMan on September 27, 2002 11:46 AM

 

>Your minds are locked on present day. Think 10 years from now, or if you're the skeptical sort, 30 years from now. The vast majority of people will be sophisticated in maneuvering through the online world.

I find this hard to believe. Here we are in 2002, ~8 years since the advent of the Web, I'm still watching people get completely flumoxed when a link targets a new window.

"Why can't I click the 'Back' button?!?!"

I'm not saying we shouldn't plan for the future, I'm saying it's a dangerous thing to overestimate your audience's abilities Jack.

Posted by: boysen on September 27, 2002 01:22 PM

 

boysen, the last statistic I heard was that half of American has Internet access at home. That's still exceedingly low. Eight years does not reflect anything on peoples' abilities to use the medium in a sophisticated manner. Twenty years from now, assuming the medium is crucial to daily life, yes, I fully expect people to be hacking URLs. And I really do expect URLs to exist in some manner. I haven't heard anyone even hint of a suitable replacement. We'll always have addresses (e.g., some form of visible ID for points on the Internet.)

Posted by: Jack on September 27, 2002 11:35 PM

 

It's a good projection based on current growth, but my personal feeling is that the pendulum is swinging back and we'll see people using the Internet more for research, exotic information, and direct communication, and less for random browsing.

Therefore, there's always going to be a group of people interested enough to create content and spend a lot of time in this medium, but the majority of users will be the type who are comfortable enough going in, but won't take the time to learn tricks like hacking a URL. It just won't be that important to them, because if they don't get the info in one place there are hundreds of other places they can go. The focal point will be the search engine, not the URL.

Posted by: Lydia on September 30, 2002 04:19 PM