[IxDA Discuss] "home" links

[Micah Freedman]

> > A) on most sites, I feel like once the user is in the site, there's not really
> > much of a reason for them to
> > go home,
>
> Can you explain what you mean here?  In my observations of how people
> use site navigation, I've seen them using the "home" link as their
> default navigation "reset", probably second only to using the
> browser's back button.

"Reset" notwithstanding, for many sites, the content on the home page
is introductory, and the navigation is universal. Thus, if you're on
an inner page, and you want to go somewhere else, there's really no
reason to go home to do it. There are plenty of exceptions of course
(a newspaper site comes to mind). And plenty of people go to google
and type "amazon.com" into the search bar even though "there's no
reason to do it".

In a casual review, I found very few major brands using a "home" link,
but my clients often seem to expect it. I like the "'home' on
rollover" pattern. I generally hate the "tiny 'home' embedded in the
logo" one. And in the interest of making things as clean as possible,
I generally prefer to leave the "home" link off unless there's a
compelling reason to have it.