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WebWord Weblog Posting Posting Date: February 28, 2003 Benefit From It -- "If a web site or a system isn't usable, no amount of artistry or technical cleverness will entice people to use it." (Comments: What do you think about dashes in URLs?)
Reader Comments...
dashes don't bother me, but having to navigate by clicking tiny little "+" signs in the folder menu does. And while "no amount of artistry or technical cleverness will entice people to use it", people use what we would deem "unusable" software or systems every day. They are "enticed" by the promise of a paycheck, and the threat of a pink slip. Posted by: on February 28, 2003 07:50 AM
Dashes don't bother me either, they just look childish. Imagine if webword.com was web-word.com. It's like saying, "We think you're too stupid to figure out where the first word ends and the second word begins so we're going to help you out a bit." Posted by: Joshua Kaufman on February 28, 2003 08:34 AM
OK, everyone, don't click: look at this URL, decide what you think the site relates to, and then click. OK? (Not quite as effective as I would like because this discussion already has a context...) Posted by: Frank on February 28, 2003 09:16 AM
I debated over using a dash in my own URL, fearing the scenario where I had to state my email address or URL verbally and having to explain the dash ("That's "DH dash, no, don't spell it out, just use the dash symbol--you know, the hyphen?!"). However, like Frank's observation, my company name just looked and sounded dumb without it: dhusability.com. I felt the dash was the lesser evil. Posted by: Don Hameluck on February 28, 2003 09:54 AM
Frank, I guessed right - do I get a prize? And I don't even live in the USA! Although, the fact that you were posing the question made me think that it wasn't something obvious. Like ice-cream cones or something. On the subject of hyphens in URLs, we've had to resort to this for clients a couple of times because the name they wanted wasn't available, and it was the closest we could get. Doesn't apply in this case though, because www.benefitfromit.com IS available. Posted by: Alan Fisher on February 28, 2003 10:19 AM
Simple test: Cure-For-Cancer.com. It isn't a usable URL form, but has that certain something usability fold dance around. No amount of usability will save a site bogged down in me-too, unimaginative, mass produced sameness. Which forces the 5,862nd Usability Site on the web, hyphenation not withstanding, to be rather boring. Posted by: on February 28, 2003 11:25 AM
Joshua, I think dashes are a smashing idea. Until you pointed it out, I always thought "webword" was Scandinavian for "we bword," meaning "we bored" and that's why we look at John's links every day. Frank, I thought coned.com stood for CONvict EDucation. You know, a training program for wannabe criminals. Posted by: Slartibartfast on February 28, 2003 11:25 AM
This is offtrack, but IIRC the really doofusy thing about coned.com is this... "Con Ed" is the colloquial name for "Con Edison," which is short for "Consolidated Edison." So a user trying to get to the site either has to experiment with url's or do a web search... I experimented with url's and found that coned.com was a subsite within conedison.com. Consumers were 'meant' to use coned.com, and corporations were meant to use conedison.com. But how was a user to know? (This situation may no longer hold true.) Posted by: Frank on February 28, 2003 02:55 PM
Frank, I thought it had something to do with a Dan Akroyd skit. :) I run into URLs like that all the time, and it always makes me wonder what the person who set it up was thinking. It just doesn't sound right, and it isn't very evocative. conedison.com would have been better (if it were available) or something along those lines. Then there are companies who turn their internally used short names for themselves into a URL, when the more recognizable (but longer) name was available. Shorter isn't always better, especially when your customers don't relate to the name. Posted by: Lydia on February 28, 2003 02:59 PM
"Frank, I thought it had something to do with a Dan Akroyd skit. :)" I thought the same thing Lydia. Say "co ned" with your nose plugged and you have Cone Head. Ha! Posted by: John S. Rhodes on February 28, 2003 04:06 PM
I wonder why most americans have such problems with dashes, here in germany they are quite common. But the most important aspect - they are sometimes very usable as a search engine optimization technique. Guess why my domain uses two of them.
Ooh, Frank, I must have been writing my entry at the same time as you, so thanks for the conedison/coned explanation. Heh heh.. good one, John. I think I was doing that, too! Posted by: Lydia on February 28, 2003 06:05 PM
Dashes were in fashion before the dot com boom. You don't see too many new domains using them though. It was one of those things that almost took off as commonplace, but clearly, without dashes has become the norm. Dashes are evil. Posted by: Lyle - Usability Guru on February 28, 2003 09:37 PM
OK, here's a riddle: which site has a dash in its domain name but doesn't? ;)
The link-anchor text "Benefit from it" at the top of this site doesn'r really match - "Benefit from IT" would have been more accurate. Sometimes small differences in letter size or usage of dashes make some greater difference in the meaning of web-words ;-) Posted by: Gerald on March 2, 2003 01:06 PM
I thought "coned.com" (Frank's posting) was about places where traffic movement was restricted by roadworks. Posted by: Philip Chalmers on March 3, 2003 04:39 AM
One upon a time I knew of an ISP at www.wearenthosting.com. Posted by: David Wertheimer on March 3, 2003 09:16 AM
Good one, but I've got a better one. There was once this e-commerce site on the Internet that sold software. It was called Soft4U.com (deceased now, I'm afraid.) Well, I guess they decided to expand into the computer hardware business too, but I don't think the marketing team put too much thought into it, because the URL of the new site was Hard4U.com Yes, you'd think somebody would've noticed. Posted by: MadMan on March 3, 2003 11:44 PM
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