tedster - 12:23 am on Jul 8, 2008 (gmt 0)

Right - exactly!

Many people worry about the ancient "3-click rule" that said a visitor should be able to go from any page to any other within 3 clicks. Well, that widely discussed "rule' from the '90s has been debunked in actual testing. the original rule was a nice guess, but unsupported by real data.

What matters to the user most is what Jakob Nielsen calls the "information scent". As long as the information scent for what they want keeps growing stronger, the user keeps clicking.

While I'm checking out the bazookas here, I should see if they have the cotton yarn my wife wants for her needlepoint. Let's see, Crafts [click]. Oh that's good, there's a Needlecrafts section [click]. Now i see Needlepoint [click]. And now there's a Yarn link [click]. OK, there's Cotton [click]. I'd better bookmark this page and ask her which colors she needs.

We all do it all the time - and so will most visitors if they have a purpose.