I'm trying to come up with a page-naming convention so that each page in a web application I'm developing has the human-friendliest URL possible. The current URL structure of the web application is:
http://foo.example.com/webapp/pageName
The only part of the URL that I'll be changing is pageName
. The application is a basic CRUD system and has a UI that consists mostly of forms and lists. There are both object- and task-oriented page names -- e.g. addEvent
, eventManager
, eventReview
, imageUploader
, editEvent
, addItem
, editItem
, bulkAddItems
, bulkEditItems
, etc. Given those constraints, I'm weighing a few different URL styles for these page names:
- The current camelCase convention, which produces names like those listed above. This is simply a vestige from prior development; the pages were named like variables, without much thought given to their UX impact.
- Hyphenation, producing page names like:
A.http://foo.example.com/webapp/add-event
,http://foo.example.com/webapp/event-manager
, or
B.http://foo.example.com/webapp/Add-Event
,http://foo.example.com/webapp/Event-Manager
- Using underscores, producing page names like:
A.http://foo.example.com/webapp/add_event
,http://foo.example.com/webapp/event_manager
, or
B.http://foo.example.com/webapp/Add_Event
,http://foo.example.com/webapp/Event_Manager
Stack Exchange and Smashing Magazine use a style somewhat similar to 2A, e.g.:
- http://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/9093/senior-usability-and-navigation
- http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/07/25/email-is-still-important-and-here-is-why/
Wikipedia uses style 3B, e.g.:
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_Programming
I'm leaning toward style 3B. It emphasizes the page name with capitalization, and the underscore seems like a clearer and more intuitive word-delimiter than the hyphen.
What do others think? How much do these different URL styles lend themselves better to UX depending on what type of web application (blog, Q&A site, encyclopedia, what have you) they're being used for?
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