Undercrank

Usability

October 11, 2003

Examining the Role of De Facto Standards on the Web

Boxes and Arrows have published an informative article examining how common design elements on popular e-commerce sites have slowly become something of an unwritten ‘de facto’ standard.

This is something Steve Krug touches upon in his book "Don't Make Me Think!" - at the most basic level, people expect the top left of a page (or at least a corporate logo) to link them back to the homepage of a site.

The article contains a few more examples, but you get the idea.

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Comments

jZilla on October 21, 2003

Couldn't agree more re "top level logo" being linked to home pages. A whole load of users have learnt the internet in the last 12-18 months, this is a given now IMO/IME.

Most browsers have their nav buttons top left - I think that also plays a role.

Safari has it's awesome "snap back" feature that does similar (returns you to the page you entered on/at).

PS - not sure if you're after random comments, but you got one just in case!