5 ms·
The www serves as a clue that it's a URL. Most people would recognize example.com as a domain even if given no other context. Contrast that with example.design.
by obelisk_ 11y ago
The www serves as a clue that it's a URL. Most people would recognize example.com as a domain even if given no other context. Contrast that with example.design. I think to most, www.example.design would be more recognizable.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- ams6110 11y agoI think few people look at URLs. They click on whatever is underlined or looks like a button.
- jacalata 11y agoThere are a lot of offline ads (billboards, magazines, TV spots) that give out a URL.
- nly 11y agoMore likely a QR code these days
- noamsml 11y agohttp://picturesofpeoplescanningqrcodes.tumblr.com/ http://picturesofpeoplescanningqrcodes.tumblr.com/
- chrisan 11y agoIs there a good (or even native) app to scan these on iPhone? Everything I have tried is lackluster. I'm to the point where if something is qr only I just don't care enough and move on
- themartorana 11y agoRedLaser works well. Really well, actually. I'm not a QR fan, but hey every now and again I do scan one (usually out of some weird curiosity) and RedLaser is the best app for the job.
- andrebalza1 11y agoOpera mini does its job, and approaches QR codes the right way, being an input alternative to the keyboard reachable from the omnibox
- vsl 11y agoScanbot. Great app for scanning documents, but when you scan a QR code, it handles it.
- forgotpasswd3x 11y agoPeople still use QR codes?
- dcwca 11y agoThey ever did?
- forgotpasswd3x 11y agoWell I think people did, once, but then immediately discovered it wasn't worth the effort.
- goodplay 11y agoI do for any printed media. It makes it easier for people to look up the corresponding electronic version of a document. QR code has its uses, but tends fail when misused. QR code is best when interacting with it is strictly optional.
- daveguy 11y agoFor loading two-factor authentication secrets. Or anything else you can think of that has too much information to convey with a short link. If you are directing people to a web site using QR codes then you're doing it wrong. Well, wrong now that everyone has realized just how limited QR codes are.
- djsumdog 11y agoI use them at bus stops to pull up live tracking
- vacri 11y agoThey're great for managing parts in a manufacturer's storeroom. A QR code is more information-dense than a barcode.
- icedchai 11y agoRight. By the time most people remember how to scan a QR code, they could've typed in the URL.
- stephen_g 11y agoEven as a technical person, I hardly use URLs apart from sites I know well. I've noticed more and more recently a trend of billboards and things that just say 'Search [name]' instead of putting their URL there.
- djhn 11y agoI've seen it too. That's a lot of confidence in their SEO.
- codeka 11y agoNot really, if I were doing this, I'd buy ads for the search term so I can guarantee (within reason) I'm at the top.
- Consultant32452 11y agoI bet the sign itself serves as search engine optimization. If everybody starts searching for "foo" and clicks on my site in the result set then a reasonable search engine might bump my site up higher for searches for "foo."
- effie 11y agoThat's an interesting hypothesis. It makes sense for the company both as optimization of their web pages for search engines and as making good impression on customers.
- tempestn 11y agoIf people don't look at the URL there's no usability issue either way, so you might as well use the www version for technical reasons. This (sub-)discussion pertains to people who do look at the url. (And personally I agree that the www helps to denote a url, and so it's a net positive for users, or at least not a net negative.)
- technion 11y agoI saw a poster on a bus with domain.sydney sitting on its own line with no other context. I'd expect the majority of people had no idea it was a web address.
- codeddesign 11y agoThis would really depend on the demographic. Someone that is more technologically inclined would understand. However, appealing to the broad spectrum the general public would not. However, that example has to do more with the domain extension rather than www. Another example would be the .co domain extension example. In the western part of the country it could be easily recognize, but in the Midwest the demographic is much different and the general public may feel that a .co domain is merely a spelling error. It's all about your user demographic and their perception. Go with non www and then a redirect. Unless your demographic runs on 2G, either way isn't going to drastically affect your users. I would be more concerned about your file and images sizes than 100ms of a redirect.
- djsumdog 11y agoYea, there should be an http:// http:// before it on print media. Otherwise no one is going to type it into their phone. I've done that for a couple of projects that use non-standard domains
- donatj 11y agoIn my experience from my wedding site, which used the .dance tld no matter how hard you try people will add .com to the end.
- ryan-c 11y agoI had mine on http://[subdomain].rya.nc/wedding/ http://[subdomain].rya.nc/wedding/ and had it printed that way with the wedding invitations and even my less technical relatives didn't seem to have problems with it. Did you have a bare domain or did you include http:// http:// and the trailing slash?
- walshemj 11y agoWhen we did some research for RBI (part of Reed Elsevier) w found that about 8 - 10% of our inbound links linked to the wrong version of the home page. So correctly handling all standard HP synonyms is a good start for all sites.
- djhn 11y agoWhy not http:// http://? To me it looks more obviously like a web address. www just looks weird
- hisham_hm 11y agoMy domain is not immediately obvious as an URL: hisham.hm (also my username in many places, or variants of it, like @hisham_hm). Sometimes I do need to make it more obvious that it's an URL (e.g. when printed, or on presentation slides). In those cases I write it as http://hisham.hm http://hisham.hm
- clinta 11y agoWhat looks less technical and more user friendly on a business card? http://hisham.hm http://hisham.hm or www.hisham.hm Personally, I think www is. And it's shorter.
- jdeibele 11y agoHow about @hisham.hm? People are used to seeing it as part of email but it conveys that it's an internet address.
- provemewrong 11y agoI would think that's a twitter handle and I don't even use twitter.