Summary: Jared Spool et al., Designing for the Scent of Information

The main theme of this paper is based on the analogy that users’ information searching behavior on a website is analogous to “animals hunting their prey”: After users arrive at a website, if they could smell the scent of the information they need, they would stay on the website and approach the information step by step guided by the scent. However, if the scent disappears in the middle, they need to “backtrack” to re-pick up the scent. Here, the term “scent” refers to “the placement of critical information, the length of links and pages, and a few other perceptible elements.” Whether users are satisfied with the scent is reflected by their confidence level.

The most important element on a website that could create scent is the “trigger words.” The first thing that users do when they open a web page is scanning for the words that represent the information they need. To create good scent, make these trigger words prominent both on the links that guide users to the needed information and the web page that contains the information.

We should be careful the things that might block scent:

· Iceberg Syndrome: Irrelevant information that contains the trigger word might prevent users from scrolling down the webpage to see the information that they really need;

· Camouflaged Links: The link doesn’t look like a link;

· Banner Blindness: Links that appear in the top 60 pixels of the home page would be ignored, because top 60 pixels is the place where banner ads usually appear and people are trained during years of using websites that banner ads are of little use;

· Links that Lie: The inconsistency between a link an its content would impair users’ confidence;

· Missing Words: Users open a link and find that the new page doesn’t contain the trigger words;

· Cute Link Names: Using cute but obscure link names would weaken the scent;

· Misplaced Links: “Designers see entire section, while users see only the pages they visit.” Do not place a link that would confuse people.

The other guidelines for creating scent are: Longer links are clearer in meaning than the short ones, but do not make them too long, which may prevent users in spotting the trigger word; navigation and content graphics help creating scent, but decorative graphics do not; to create scent for a website, “start with the most important content and determine the most effective trigger words.”