Web Falacies

This is an interesting article that tests the validity of the "Three Click Rule" of web design--namely that nothing should be more than 3 clicks away from the user. This research found that there was correlation between task success or user satisfaction and the number of clicks. I think this astute observation at the end of the article nicely sums it up.

"The Three-Click Rule isn't completely bad. People talk about it with users in mind, even executives who have never designed a web site. The rule may help designers focus on the information that users need and may help them create better web sites....

However, the Three-Click Rule does not focus on the real problem. The number of clicks isn't what is important to users, but whether or not they're successful at finding what they're seeking."

An interesting aside in the article that I wasn't expecting.

"[I]n one e-commerce study, we found that the more pages users visited (more clicks), the less they bought."

Read the article: Testing the Three-Click Rule