needing of the help...

[electricland]

OK, so my boss is on yet another anti-link rampage.*

The issue is this. Back in the day when they were setting up our site, which is an information site for parents of children with complex medical conditions (epilepsy, diabetes, brain tumours, etc.), someone whom I have not met, but whom I curse on a regular basis, decided that Links Were Bad. The reasoning appears to go something along the lines of "This is a resource centre containing the sum of all human knowledge on this topic, so perfectly designed and written and intuitive that people will always be able to find what they need right off.** If we put in links to related pages in the same resource centre so that people can click them when they want more information, that will just be confusing."

Obviously this reasoning is WRONG WRONG WRONG AND INSANE, but for some reason he's not willing to take my word for it.

So, smart and knowledgeable friends, please help me! I need evidence that links=good, and not just in my personal opinion but in the opinion of right-thinking usability advocates everywhere. I have a few places to start, but if anyone has a favourite essay on the topic that they can suggest, that would be awesome.

*This is a strong word, and possibly unjustified, as he is open to discussion on the matter, or says he is.
**It will surprise none of you to learn that this is not precisely the case.

Edited to add a clarification: I'm talking about INTERNAL links within the same website: "For more information about X, please see this page in this section." He doesn't like external links either, but I'm picking my battles.

Comments

[archaica.livejournal.com]

Wow, how impossibly narcissistic is that assessment? Seriously.

My line of reasoning would probably be along the lines of, "it is important to provide visitors with a sense of consensus, that the information we present is actually verifiable and popular opinion among the general medical community - especially on the internet, where the quality of information is only as good as the issuing source." Does your organization have that kind of public cachet which will make its judgments and information instantly trusted? Otherwise, you better back up your info.

That's one line of reasoning. The other one is, "It's a frickin' web site!" Sheesh.

[archaica.livejournal.com]

This site might be of help (http://www.vuw.ac.nz/staff/alastair_smith/evaln/evaln.htm) - well, depending on the quality of the links (how meta!)

[electricland.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much -- that looks fascinating! Will peruse.

[electricland.livejournal.com]

You are so right. (And I say this as one of the people creating the content. I know damn well I'm not perfect, and not everyone looks at information the same way as me.)

As it happens we do have that kind of public cachet. (Nice for us, eh?) Sorry, I didn't make myself clear -- I'm not talking about external links (if that were my only problem I would be so happy!) but about internal links. Of the "more information on topic X is available on this page" variety. Based on the premise that gee, not everybody notices the nav menus, and by the time they've got a few screens down the nav menus aren't there any more anyway, and isn't it easier on them to just give them a link than force them to scroll back up to the top of the page and hunt around for it? *sob*

I did try the second argument. Well, I said "The Web is about links," and he said "That's one interpretation," so I have a feeling I need more ammo.

[raithen.livejournal.com]

ahem.

fly me to Toronto. I'll ammo you up. Start with Neilsen, he's your biggest ally. Get _Designing Web Usability_ from the library. Also, www.useit.com.

The Burbules article I can get the full citation for if you want. Kress and Hodge have a good article that I can dig up. I have bookshelves FULL of stuff. Check your old Tech Comms and Intercom's - they'll have stuff.

Poor you! Cuz seriously, the web IS about links - they are crucial to credibility and effective info design. If you have to, play the "you pay me as an expert in my field" card to try and get at least a test balloon or two out - maybe usability test on them? Query on them? Try some in one or two articles and track clicks?

[archaica.livejournal.com]

I'm not talking about external links (if that were my only problem I would be so happy!) but about internal links.

...

I think you *do* need the DSM-IV - to diagnose what is wrong with this man.

[electricland.livejournal.com]

this is more ironic than you can know, as he is actually a clinical psychologist... :P

[(Anonymous)]

Explain that html stands for "hyper-text mark-up language" and then explain what hyper-text is.

Also explain that just because there's a link in a page, it doesn't mean a viewer will/must leave the referring page to look at it. I open links in tabs or new windows all the time, so I can cross reference terms or contexts which I don't understand on the source page.

Your site, I suspect, needs to facilitate comprehension more than just about any site, and you're audience is made up of non-experts. Just cause you guys don't need links to understand articles, that doesn't mean the viewer won't.

[electricland.livejournal.com]

It is so true.

Sadly, he believes in the power of structure and design, and I believe in hypertext AND structure and design, and he's the boss so he wins. For now. ;)

But thank you.

[wanderingaengus.livejournal.com]

I suggest the DSM-IV. As in, your boss is crazy if he thinks cross-references are bad. I don't know what the standard works are on information design and so forth, but just about anything ought to get the point of hypertext across.

[electricland.livejournal.com]

For now I am leaving the cross-references (because we need them and he OK'd them once and it drives me CRAZY when we have a cross-reference without a link) but taking out the redundant inline text links. Which I had in there for a reason, but hopefully telling people how to get to the content will be a decent second choice.

See also "my boss is a psychologist", above. And thanks. ;)

[cosmicbob.livejournal.com]

Has he ever used the internet? Does he type in the web address of every site he wants to visit?

How very bizarre.

[electricland.livejournal.com]

Yes, and sadly, yes. ;)

Several hours after the ultimatum Friday I said "sorry if I was too forceful, and I think you're right that we need to approach this in a more principled fashion" (hey, I can be politic if I have to) and he said "I have discovered that you are a radical hypertextualist and I am a structuralist" and we both laughed. He's still wrong, I think, but there it is for now, and the site will still be usable -- just not AS usable as it might be.

[(Anonymous)]

I think internal links are a must have, but I can see the need for excluding external links or at least minimizing their numbers since they content can disappear on you and then you'd have to make a point of verifying external links a regular basis.

[electricland.livejournal.com]

It is true. We try to confine them to only a few pages.