Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Hyperlink the verb or the noun?


I'm telling users to get something and where they can get it. Should I hyperlink the action or the destination? Which of the following would be easier for the user to parse and execute?



You need to upgrade the app from the Android Market.



Or




You need to upgrade the app from the Android Market.



A third option would be to hyperlink everything. But the more you hyperlink, the less scannable something is. Too much text would be shouting for attention, right?



You need to upgrade the app from the Android Market.




Answer



It's a good idea to think of the link — marked in bold in your post — as the main focus of the sentence. It's what's most important. So if you want the user to focus on the concept of "Android market" that should be the link — if the user should focus on the concept of "upgrading", that should be the link.


A good test for this is capitalizing the words you want to link, which makes it obvious what you want the user to think about.




You need to UPGRADE THE APP from the Android Market.


You need to upgrade the app from the ANDROID MARKET.



It seems to me that the first option is the best.


Of course, I am not suggesting that you capitalize your text on your website — only use this method as a test during dev for you to look at the words and see how you react to the copy. Then, type your link as desired (lower caps, etc).


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