Comment by neilk | Hacker News Reader

Comment by neilk | Hacker News Reader

This is a well-intentioned but terrible idea.

This idea fails even on its own, since it presumes that URLs have structure, even within a particular site. So if you want to add a new page, even a one-off for a special occasion, then you have to start thinking about where it fits in your ad hoc URL/navigation scheme, too. Also, if you want to redesign navigation, you have to change all your URLs. URLs are brilliant because they are separate from navigation; that's a feature, not a bug.

But it's also philosophically wrong. The URL -- a simple string that can be used to fetch any resource -- is the single greatest innovation of the web. A simple string can pass through literally any human communication system. Speech, print, text messaging, anything. A URL is not an inherently intuitive concept so it is not all that usable. But it's necessary. Training users to recognize URLs is vitally important, or we are back to relying on AOL^H^H^HFacebook to provide navigation tools.

Personally I think we shouldn't move away from the concept of: URI <=> resource, just for some short-term gain. I think that metaphor will be a lot more useful in the long term.

What we may do, and to be honest it's starting to happen already, is to get rid of the address bar as an always-visible user interface feature. It could just be an overlaid window for those times when you actually want to type in the url (or if you jus want to check its value) that disappear once one click enter. And to be honest this is already happening in mobile phones where space is limited.

The breadcrumb idea, especially if as customisable as the author suggest, should be done in the site... which we already can do.

The great thing about URLs is that they're unique. URL meta tags sound like every phisher's dream

Agreed. I think this idea would be better implemented by the application itself as a navigational aid; maybe as a small bar stuck to the window on the bottom (as Facebook's bar was done).

> "Training users to recognize URLs is vitally important"

This raises an interesting side question. What kinds of things should present day computer/net users be aware of? In other words what would you consider 'basic training' for your average user?

The reason I find this question interesting is because I'm sure many years ago that a grasp of the command line was considered important (but then 'average user' also meant something different).

Except that the URL string doesn't translate well in meat space. I cringe every time I hear someone on the radio or television read off a URL: "Log on to double 'U', double 'U', double 'U' dot mylonganduglywebsitename dot com, forward slash, long directory name, forward slash, yet another long directory name AND click on the partially hidden link". Surely there's verbal short hand that can be implemented?

For a start we should try to get rid of all those www: that will be the greatest help. The rest should be pretty easy: a website can always set a forwarding link so that, say: www.cocacola.com/offer goes to the page of the actual offer.

> "This idea fails even on its own, since it presumes that URLs have structure, even within a particular site."

Don't sites usually have regular URL structures. Or, at least, could be organized into regular structures? In Rails, we have routes that map to URLs, like

  <website>/clothing/shirts/
  <website>/electronics/cellphones/verison
  <website>/<department>/<item_type>/<brand>

which looks like the idea the author was aiming towards. It doesn't seem that unreasonable.

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