5 ms·
Even a URL tells a story
- ThomPete 15y agoThe interesting thing though is that Jobs was always very inspired by Sony and "tidyness". I really do wonder if Apple can continue without Jobs or whether it will decay into management kingdoms like Sony and other large organizations.
- beaumartinez 15y agoSony's mixing the store with the product information page, resulting in such an ugly URL. Regarding stores, however, Apple isn't entirely innocent either—what about URLs like this[1]? Sony UK's is just a product information page, and it has a much cleaner URL[2] (albeit not as clean as Apple's). [1] http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_ipod/family/ipod_touch?aid=AIC-WWW-NAUS-K2-BUYNOW-IPODTOUCH-INDEX&cp=BUYNOW-IPODTOUCH-INDEX http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_ipod/family/ipod_... [2] http://www.sony.co.uk/hub/walkman http://www.sony.co.uk/hub/walkman
- patio11 15y agoThis story is pretty short: the Sony page is an Enterprise Java (TM) shopping cart, not a brochureware page in a CMS. Apple also is a heavy user of Enterprise Java. Try finding pages where they can take input. That said, yeah, given the choice I would a) devote engineering resources to getting human-readable URLs (SEO and UX benefits for reasonably little work) and b) prefer frameworks which make that the default because they are likely clueful in other ways, too.
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- shrikant 15y agoI get the point he's trying to make, but you can still type in http://sony.com/walkman http://sony.com/walkman and it takes you to the correct page.
- nuclear_eclipse 15y agoHow do you discover that though? If you get to it from Google or another site, you're immediately thrown onto a page with a hideous, unrecognizable URL.
- parallel 15y agoThe story here is, 'hide complexity'? Or perhaps 'Focus on the details of user experience'? I love the reference to "all of this business at the top". Perhaps there's a design principle in there. If a user is ever referring to "all this business..." then you've gone off track.
- wulczer 15y agoI'd say that the URL for Apple iPod is: http://google.com/search?q=apple%20ipod and for Sony Walkman: http://google.com/search?q=sony20walkman Really, I see people going to their GMail by typing "gmail" in Google. And ask 100 strangers on the street how important the tidyness of the text in their browser's address bar is to them.
- simonw 15y agoYup... and unfortunately for Sony, the top hit for "sony walkman" is Wikipedia. If their URLs didn't completely suck maybe they would have better luck with their SEO.
- wulczer 15y agoI think it's Wikipedia because "walkman" has a much longer history as a brand name, from cassette players to cell phones. I remember times where back where I lived "walkman" was a plain noun meaning "any kind of portable cassette player".
- lachenmayer 15y agoWell, in a way the same thing is true with "iPod" now: It's used to refer to "any kind of MP3 player". But search for "ipod" on Google, and the Wikipedia page telling you all about the history of the iPod is not the first result, it's a page where you can actually buy one. Several pages, actually.
- innes 15y agoHmmm. I don't believe people use the term 'iPod' to refer to any old MP3 player.
- JacobAldridge 15y agoSome do (my parents for example), and I suspect even among those who recognise different brands, there's decreasing awareness of what MP3 is. It's not uncommon for a brand to become synonomous over time - Walkman was an earlier example in this thread, but others include Liquid Paper, Roller Blades, and even Biros. Dangerous territory, because in the instance where it does become generic your trademark protection disappears (see also the battle Xerox continues to wage in that regard).
- evansolomon 15y agoIt's ironic that a post about URL tidiness would be here: http://reillybrennan.com/post/7686471401/even-a-url-tells-a-story http://reillybrennan.com/post/7686471401/even-a-url-tells-a-...
- andybak 15y agoAside from maybe removing the numeric ID, is that url that bad?
- simonw 15y agoA better URL would be http://reillybrennan.com/2011/even-a-url-tells-a-story http://reillybrennan.com/2011/even-a-url-tells-a-story - stick the year in there to get a fresh namespace every 12 months so as not to end up with collisions some day.
- duck 15y agoI can see going either way with or without the year, but not for the reason you stated. If you are writing the exact same title for a blog post then the year should probably be in the actual title because that most likely is an important piece of the article (thinking "Resolutions - 2011"). The reason I might include a year in the path is just to let users know quickly how old the material is when they see a link to your article, but then again do you really want to let them know that before click into your site?
- simonw 15y agoI like using years for namespaces because I like thinking long-term - in 50 years time, will that site's namespace be getting too busy? Using years means you can even completely change the rest of your URL scheme without needing to update last year's URLs. Quickly letting users use the age of the article is a good reason too, but only for blog-style content. I don't think you should use the year trick with evergreen content (example.com/2010/terms-of-service for example).
- yread 15y agoWho cares about urls? My browser hides everything except the domain anyway
- nokcha 15y ago>Who cares about urls? Google does. If you have a non-descriptive URL, you're missing out on an opportunity for search-engine optimization.
- Arjuna 15y agoWho cares about urls? Clean URLs can help developers to better manage their site. This is because they provide an intuitive way to organize site content. By design, this also means that users can find information easily. As a simple example, imagine surfing an exotic car website. You want to find information about the Koenigsegg Agera. Now, imagine the following two URLs which both point to the page about the Koenigsegg Agera: 1. http://www.example.com/vehicle.aspx?id=0x5F3759DF http://www.example.com/vehicle.aspx?id=0x5F3759DF 2. http://www.example.com/vehicle/koenigsegg_agera http://www.example.com/vehicle/koenigsegg_agera Clearly, the URL in example 2 offers: 1. An intuitive way to navigate the site's content. As a user, you could enter a different vehicle name, using the given URL structure, to locate other vehicles: http://www.example.com/vehicle/ariel_atom http://www.example.com/vehicle/ariel_atom http://www.example.com/vehicle/porsche_918 http://www.example.com/vehicle/porsche_918 2. SEO (Search Engine Optimization). This is a topic unto itself. In general, one of the areas of SEO is optimizing URLs in order to achieve the best results with regard to indexing and ranking. Please see Google's Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide (see link, below) for a more in-depth treatment of this topic. References: Clean URL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_URL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_URL Google's Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide (See page 8, "Improve the structure of your URLs") http://www.google.com/webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf http://www.google.com/webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimiza... URL structure http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=76329 http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answe... Search Engine Optimization http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization
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- mugshotsdotcom 15y agoThe true URL story is http://ipod.com http://ipod.com vs. http://walkman.com http://walkman.com
- skarayan 15y agoIMO, this shows how important each respective product is to each company.
- rglover 15y agoI like the point of this post, but I wish the author would have elaborated more. Sanitary URLs are great because they play on human emotions. Looking at the simple, clean Apple URL, it does two things: it provides an easy to remember route to their specific product, and two, it feels clean. In contrast, the Sony URL feels dirty and disorganized, lacking a real focus and seemingly, makes the Walkmen feel like just another electronic whatchamacalit. Although it seems purely cosmetic, there's a subconscious thing going on. Yes it helps developers/consumers but even more importantly, it makes your brand look focused. There should be more writing on the psych aspects of web development. I feel like there's a lot to be said.
- andos 15y agoDonald Norman wrote a great deal about that subject (psychological and emotional aspects of user experience), albeit not specifically about web dev.
- rglover 15y agoI thought the name looked familiar. I downloaded a copy of "The Design of Everyday Things" not too long ago. Guess I'll have to crack it open? For those that are also interested: http://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-Donald-Norman/dp/0385267746 http://www.amazon.com/Design-Everyday-Things-Donald-Norman/d...
- andos 15y agoAnd there's also Emotional Design: http://www.amazon.com/Emotional-Design-Love-Everyday-Things/dp/0465051359 http://www.amazon.com/Emotional-Design-Love-Everyday-Things/...
- qntm 15y agoI wrote a thing about my exceptionally short urls a little while ago: http://qntm.org/urls http://qntm.org/urls