encyclo - 12:19 am on Jun 28, 2006 (gmt 0)

Do you type URIs into the address bar?

It's extremely rare that I type in anything other than a domain name into the address bar. The exceptions are for...

What about URIs in print? Specific promotions?

My local radio station has an associated website, and each program has its own section. They use one-keyword redirects to the "real" URL, so:

www.example.com/programname

redirects to:

www.example.com/radio/full-program-name/

You can see the same approach from big names:

[microsoft.com...]

leads to the "real" URL:

[microsoft.com...]

So you can set up redirects for specific campaigns, but the real underlying structure doesn't need to be "clean" to be usable.

Of course, you can't always depend on this approach:

[apple.com...]

So you have to know the shortcuts exist to use them. Outside of the aspect given above (for type-ins from radio or print ads), there is no real use for URL shortcuts. If you can't find the page or section by clicking via the navigation or searching the site, then URL-guessing is a desperate last resort, and an indication of a usability failure. Most users would give up before trying to guess the link, inexperienced users don't use the address bar for navigation at all - at best they use it as a search box.

Neilsen's article is mostly about domain names, not file names. Domain name choice is also important, but branding is much more popular than keyword domains, which are supposedly more usable as they are more obvious.