The 3 Click Rule: Not Applicable?
Usability folks have been preaching the 3-click rule for years: if a user can’t get to a page within 3 clicks, then the navigation needs to be tweaked. Overall, I think this rule has proven to be effective. Sites like Apple.com and Google.com operate by this guideline and have wonderfully navigable user interfaces.
However, a more important element should be planned and executed before implementing the 3-click rule. Jared M. Spool, Christine Perfetti, and David Brittan published a report that in some ways debunks the 3-click concept. In Designing for the Scent of Information, they posit that what users expect is that every click they make gets them closer to the information they seek. As long as they have indicators that they are heading in the right direction, they won’t likely abandon the site.
So rather than applying a strict 3-click rule, site designers would do well to develop a significant indicator of where the user came from, where he or she is at, and where he or she is headed. This doesn’t necessarily mean creating fancy breadcrumbs, although such navigation trails are certainly userful. The overall design of the site, and of each page, ought to be clear enough that the user doesn’t have to squint or zoom in to decipher what’s going on and where elements are located.
Let me introduce an analogy that has helped me focus on the more important design points we’re talking about here. Take a look at Apple’s iPhone internet video. You’ll see a device that quite strikingly produces a clear, useful view of web pages. Now, on the iPhone, when the page first loads, only certain elements are visible without zooming in.
Design your site so that the user gets, in the screen size of an iPhone, (on the first instance) indicators of their navigation. A breadcrumb probably won’t work, now, will it? But your H1’s and H2’s will, as well as images and graphic elements.
Looking for Attractive Online Markets
Thanks to Michael Porter’s five forces model, we can better understand how attractive a market is. Unfortunately, many internet entrepreneurs just dive into projects assuming that the market is ripe for the picking without consulting this or other effective frameworks.
The other day, I discussed a web site idea with a friend. He wanted to sell sports products online. Here’s how the five forces model helped us understand that it probably would be a bad idea.
Potential Entrants
What is the threat of new entrants into the market? Well, with almost anything online, the threat is going to be higher than usual because of the relatively low barriers to entry: just buy a good domain name, host the thing, and you’re off—for less than 50 bucks, most of the time. So selling sports gear online will not be immune from lots of potential entrants. Favorable? No.
Suppliers
How much bargaining power do suppliers bear? Sports gear has many suppliers. Because of the high volume of athletic equipment, their bargaining power is somewhat average. Favorable? More or less.
Substitutes
What is the threat of substitute products or services? Again, with the web being so agile, there actually is a greater threat of possible substitute websites out there. Already, a user can go to some pretty big online retailers and get their products there. The best bet is to go for a highly specialized market, say boxing equipment websites, etc. Still, there does exist the possibility of many thousands of substitute products online. Favorable? No.
Buyers
How much bargaining power do buyers have? Lots of bargaining power. They are just a click away from going elsewhere, so your price will be compared for sure. Supply/demand for online retail fluctuates with big promotions from the big boys. For a start up, buyers probably are going to go elsewhere unless you have a ridiculously low price. Favorable? No.
Competition
What rivalry exists among present competitors? Huge rivalry, huge competition. Already some significant leaders exist making this one unfavorable for sure. It will surely be an uphill battle to build a successful sports equipment web site.
Overall
You can see that the five forces model shows that it’s highly unlikely that a start up web site will go far on little capital for this particular market. Too bad web developers just take the dive off the board without this simple tool for gauging the market difficulty.
Some Feedback on Displacement Scores
I just got an email from a good friend about the displacement scores we’ve been testing. I hope you all can have similar success using this measurement!
Dave,
Here’s some interesting data I found that might help your research. I googled the following phrases:
you can do this
“you can do this”
Once without quotes, the second time with quotes. When I googled it without quotes, the education.byu.edu/youcandothis page didn’t show in the first 50 results. When I googled it with quotes, we were 5th on the list. I was curious to see the displacement scores for the phrases, so I checked it out:
you can do this - 8,748 (something like that)
“you can do this” - 16
Using your legend, it matches perfectly. You say that for a score of 11-70, “penetrating the top ten will require active link strategies as well as a coherently crafted relevant page.” We haven’t done many linking strategies, but we have done a coherently crafted page…(like all our pages, we’ve made sure that the title, URL, h1 tag, and body text match the keyword). In your analysis of the data, I think our lack of linking strategy is made up by the fact that we are an .edu domain. That gives us the beef to make up for the lack of incoming links.
Anyway, your scores matched the data. An .edu domain with a well-crafted page was able to break the top ten search results for a keyword with a 16 displacement score. It was not able to break the top ten search results for a keyword with an 8000+ displacement score. Just as I would have expected.
