The Great 3 Click Hoax

It's most likely that this 'rule' started out innocently enough; a frustrated website user throwing up her arms demanding to know why she can't find any decent information within a few clicks, or perhaps an equally frustrated website developer unable to wrap his head around a client's suggested site navigation who was looking for a justification to chop half of it out.

3 Clicks to Midnight

Proponents of this rule will paint a picture of sudden disaster where that fourth mouse click is the red X closing your website if your website user has been unable to complete their desired task within three clicks. On the flip-side, rigidly sticking to three clicks will most likely force your website to have navigation which is over-crowded and doesn't make sense. Is the deciding factor the supposed '75% of visitors that will leave after three clicks if they can't find the information they were looking for?'

It shouldn't be.

In 2003, User Interface Engineering (UIE) undertook a study to find out if users really do leave after three clicks. They looked at data from 44 users attempting 620 tasks, recording the clicks of every task and whether the user succeeded or failed at finding their desired content – in total they analysed more than 8000 clicks. They should have seen a drop off in users after their third click, or that users taking more than three clicks to accomplish a task would be unsatisfied.

But they didn't.

Instead their "analysis showed that there wasn't any more likelihood of a user quitting after 3 clicks than after 12...hardly anybody gave up after three clicks." In fact as they proceeded to analyse their data comparing successful and unsuccessful experiences they saw that "it isn't until 15 clicks that we see 80% of our tasks completed. Successful clickstreams have the same distribution as unsuccessful clickstreams – the number of clicks doesn't predict task success or failure."

Misunderstood Sentiment

Certainly in the early days of websites where the majority of users were on slow modems, having a finite three click rule made sense. Clicking cost a lot of time, and keeping navigation short and to the point was the main goal. However the online world today is vastly different and as internet connections become faster, websites are becoming more complex applications and following this outdated rule is serving to hinder their natural evolution.

I certainly agree with the underlying original sentiment; you should never complicate the navigation on your website unnecessarily because this will invariably lead your site users into a confusing never-ending maze and their resulting frustration will cost you the sale.

Your website needs to focus on quality not quantity.

Quality Navigation

One of the most important first steps in creating a website should be the site structure. The site structure (or site map) is essentially the spine of your website and it can make or break the success of your website.

It's a good idea to think about all of the information you would like on your website and how it may relate to each other. Whilst this step is boring compared to the excitement of creating your website's look, it is just as important. Make sure that you pay special attention to the main purpose of your website and ensure that this is reflected in your main site navigation.

Some other great ideas to ensure your site is easy to navigate (where appropriate) include:

• Use breadcrumb navigation so that your site users can see at a glance where they are and how to get back.
• Always use sensible, meaningful and descriptive language for links, buttons and navigation items.
• Keep related content together in your navigation, so that your site users can easily find it.
• Always place your contact information in multiple places which are easy to spot so that if a user does get confused, they will be more likely to contact you.
• Always include search functionality on your site (unless it is a very small site).
• Include a site map on your website. This is a very easy way to allow your site users to quickly and easily find what they are looking for.
• Always give each page within your website a sensible and descriptive page name.
• Pay attention if someone tells you your website is hard to use, find out why they think this and then fix it.

SEO Considerations

Perhaps the 3 click rule was truly created with a search engine spider in mind, as some impatient spiders may leave your website after crawling through just a few levels of your navigation. The logical belief would be that the higher up the navigation tree the page is, the more relevance the search engine would give it as it was easier for a person to find.

While this largely doesn't hold true these days, it can be a good idea to try to keep your most important and relevant content in the higher level navigation, however don't despair if this isn't possible. Search engines will find any discoverable content on your site and you can always consider deep submitting any content which you feel is important directly to search engines to ensure that these pages are discovered.

In summary

• Create a site structure that makes sense for the information which is going to be present on your website.
• Make your site easy to navigate by including sensible and meaningful language on navigation elements, keep related content together, and use breadcrumb navigation.
• Ensure your contact details are easily found in multiple locations so if a user gets stuck they will be more likely to contact you.
• Consider adding a site map and ensure that all pages in your website have sensible and meaningful page names.
• If you are concerned about search engines not finding content deep within your website, then deep submit that content (or your site map) directly to them to ensure they find it.
• Never force your website into a 3 click approach if it doesn't make sense for the information you are presenting! And feel free to share this article with everyone you know :-)

P.S.

Please feel free to click here to contact us if you would like assistance with your website site structure or if you would like further information about the points contained within this article.

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