Embedding Links Into Content

Posted on January 10, 2008 by Alexis Brion

Embedding links into your content encourages users to visit other sections of your website. Placing links into articles also gives more context and value to users.

"A common problem is that users do not understand where the link could go…"

It’s important to pay attention on the way these links are done. A common problem is that users do not understand where the link could go. On the example below, taken from News.com, it’s clear for most users that clicking on "struck licensing agreements" would link to an article about that. On the other hand, clicking on "Imeem", would take the user to the company’s website or to other news about it?

The New York Times goes one step forward making embedded links more understandable, predictable and user friendly. As the user hover over the candidates’ names in this politics article, the link label appears telling users that they would be taken to more articles about that candidate. Using proper link labeling improves usability and avoid confusion. (Mouse arrow is not displayed).

Fishing Users with Content Headlines and Blurbs

Posted on November 14, 2007 by Alexis Brion

Driving users to full stories and content could not be that easy. What news sites do is to present headlines with some more lines of the article. This usually works fine, for example the New York Times use a good design: picture, plus headline, plus blurb.

NYT 20071114

But sometimes some content like pictures and video don’t have a proper text description to fish users. Of course, the image itself is a hook but if you add some descriptions to your media content in you web interface users will feel more attractive to click and go farther into your website. Here a bad design example, Yahoo! is missing the hook.

Yahoo 20071114

The Most Easy Way to Make Your Blog Mobile

Posted on October 18, 2007 by Alexis Brion

I have recently found another way to make this blog available for mobile users. Feedm8 makes a mobile compatible version of your blog, it’s free to create it and free for the users to read. It also put mobile ready ads on your blog and share the earnings with the blog’s publisher (60% of the revenue is for the blog owner). But what I want to point out is the easiness of this site.

I landed to the sign up page when I clicked on another site, and the procedure is extremely easy, you only have to fill the shortest form ever with your blog’s address or feed URL and your email address. That’s it! Then you have your blog’s mobile version created.

Sing Up Box at feedm8

The feedm8 design is not flawless, although the problems are not big. For example, when I was navigating my account I got this message telling me to click on the “Promote” icon to, obviously, promote my blog.