Click Away

Here’s one to tuck away with the “click here” principle. Stop Counting Clicks is an interesting article the interface myth of click counting. (E.g. 3 clicks or more to get where you need to go is perceived as a bad thing) You hear this every once in a while, but there are some things you should consider before falling in line with this way of thinking.  In particular was a good cycling analogy, here’s an excerpt…

I’m a keen cyclist and there are quite a few hills near where I live. On a gradual hill, I shift into a fairly easy gear that still allows me to maintain a bit of speed. In order to get up the hill I might turn my pedals 300 times. Each pedal turn takes a bit of effort, but the hill isn’t very steep so I have no real problems getting up it.

The next hill I come to might be a lot steeper. In order to get up it I’m going to need to shift into my easiest gear. Each pedal turn is very easy, but I need to turn the pedals a lot more often in order to get up the hill. The steep hill is a more difficult task than the gradual one. By breaking the task up into lots of easy pedal turns I can still get to the top without problem.

So what has any of that got to do with websites? Well, in order to keep some tasks simple for your users, they may have to click more often. In the same way that a cyclist needs to perform more pedal strokes when climbing a steep hill.

Just as the cyclist is not counting her pedal strokes, your user is not counting his clicks. They both just want to get to where they’re going.