Design vs Art Blog

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).

Popularity: 23% [?]

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.

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.

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Popularity: 13% [?]