Thursday, January 25, 2007

The Way Scent Works

The "scent of information" is a working theory we use to explain how people navigate large information spaces. Users scour pages for strong scent, using those clues to help them know where to click. When scent is successful, the users find what they're looking for effortlessly. When the scent is poor, the users get lost and become frustrated.

Studying the design of hundreds of large web sites, we've identified some basic attributes of how scent works:

  • Users approach information spaces with a specific mission in mind. The best sites design the scent for those missions.
  • Users first scan the page for 'trigger words' -- the word or phrases that will trigger them into clicking on a given link.
  • If they don't find appropriate trigger words, they'll often resort to the site's Search function. (In essence, they are creating their own scent.)
  • As users start to click, scent is more about eliminating choices -- things it's obviously not. As the user continues to click, the scent becomes more about honing the right content.
  • Users deduce part of a link's scent from its proximity to related links. Groups of links can increase the scent of each individual link contained in the group.
  • Users expect every click to make them more confident they will find their result. When the page that results from a click doesn't increase the users' confidence, their frustration increases and they consider abandoning the quest.

While we discovered these attributes studying internet sites, intranets are no different. Working with our clients on their portals has taught us that each of these attributes is just as important as on their public-facing site.