To be fair to web developers and managers, Neilsen did say that for the next few years while people become more experienced users, it will also be necessary to have an explicit link to Home. By rights it's been seven years, so the home link should have all but disappeared. The problem of course, is that while the majority of websites do have a link via their logo, it seems that only experienced internet users know that this is the case.
UsabilityOne Interactive Fun at the Office: Find the least experienced (or most frustrated) Internet user you know and show them they can click the logo to get to the home page on most sites. This has been met with nothing but unmitigated delight at our end.
The question of the logo link raised two key issues for us. The first is the removal of a "Home" text link or button and the impact this has on navigation, especially on content driven sites.
More and more of our clients are reporting that a significant percentage of their traffic is made up of people who have performed a Google search and come to their site via a back page of their website. There is no question that Google's market penetration is extraordinary, especially with relatively new internet users, some of whom in our testing have actually referred to Google as "The Internet".
Neilsen nails the problem when he cautions web managers to consider how all these back page visitors will then navigate to the home page. Your home page is prime real estate and is often the most politically fraught area of your site, in respect to who wants a piece of it. If so much time and energy is invested in this page, you want people to visit it. It makes sense therefore that users can navigate Home, irrespective of where they enter your site.
If a user has found your site through a deep link from Google then they are probably already favourably disposed to you, since you're helping them solve a problem. They might decide they want to know more about you and who you are, and might imagine the home page is the place to start. If there is no link to Home in your global navigation this is going to prove extremely difficult for a user not experienced with website 'work arounds'.
In addition, users who do land on your Home page first, may well use this as their "base" for the rest of the time they are on your site, especially on content heavy sites. For example, a user may navigate through a series of pages, find what they are looking for and, even if other options are presented at this deep level (top level navigation), prefer to return to the Home page to start their next task.
The second question this raised is a much more speculative one: Will the linked logo ever replace the Home button? At UsabilityOne we rarely see inexperienced users click the logo to navigate to the home page (although experienced users will). They will, however, quite often click whichever link is furthest to the left and top of screen as this is one of the conventional Home link locations. Until websites are perfectly structured, perfectly intuitive and have perfectly designed navigational paths, (stop giggling) we think this humble link will play a crucial role in helping your users find their way Home.
