When working on choosing the top 10 winning intranets for our Intranet Design Annual contest, I was once again reminded of a design trend that I wish would disappear. Thriving since the early 2000s, the practice of using the term Quicklinks is unfortunately alive and well. In fact, 20% of the total number of intranets submitted to this year’s contest offer Quicklinks.
To be clear, the capability to organize links and to make them accessible to employees as quickly as possible is a helpful, positive offering on intranets. But, I take exception with the particulars of the practice, and the catchy and confusing label.
Quicklinks Defined
Quicklinks (or Quick Links) is a list of unstructured links placed in a salient place on a page. The feature usually takes the form of a drop-down list appearing in the upper right part of the homepage or on all pages on the intranet.
Often referred to as a “navigator,” this type of component has several benefits. Mainly, it:
- resides at the high level on the page as well as in the information architecture
- can attract attention to a small set of links or commands
- may make some commands easier to find and access than they are in the IA
(Navigators are sometimes also used on intranets to access elements that are not part of the intranet’s IA. For example, designers may use a navigator outside the intranet’s global navigation to offer access to another enterprise application or the public-facing website. This type of navigator is better justified than Quicklinks.)
While Quicklinks is usually a drop-down list, sometimes it can also be presented in a more visible and accessible way, as an on-page list of links.
In recent years another variation that has appeared on some flat-design intranets displays icons, sometimes with labels, that offer one-click access. Unlike the drop-down list or list of links, this variation uses a larger part of the screen real estate. It may match the site aesthetic and be helpful. However sometimes the icons are not decipherable or memorable. (If using this variant, remember to consider the usability issues with icons.)
Content Found Under Quicklinks
The vagueness of the word Quicklinks is the chief problem with this interface component. Because the term is ambiguous, designers feel justified putting almost anything under that heading. There are a few different types of content that designers usually place under Quicklinks, including the following:
- Customizable links that employees can add and edit
- Popular content
- Very important tools and content
- Content that is known to be difficult to find
- Frequently accessed features
- A variety of types of links
Customizable Links
Offering favorites on intranets can be helpful, even though this functionality comes free with the web-browser application. Favorites within the intranet itself means that the links travel with the users; and people find it helpful to differentiate their favorites in the browser (which often include external sites) from their favorites on their organization’s intranet.
There are already known terms for customized links: they are called Favorites or Bookmarks. Use one of these terms instead of Quicklinks. Some intranet designers also opt for My Links or My Favorites which work too, as they also take away the uncertainty in the label. (While link customization can be useful, remember the usability issues with customization interfaces.)
Popular Content
In the era of social media people have come to expect and rely on content recommended or consumed by others. It is becoming common practice to name these types of links Popular Links. So use this term instead of Quicklinks for a socially-driven link feature. More specific social naming, such as Most Emailed, can also be helpful. Or call the section heading Popular Links but near the links themselves show the number of shares. Other operative, albeit physically longer labels used on intranets are Most Frequently Used or Most Frequently Accessed. (More about social features on intranets.)
People Should Be Finding: Very Important Tools and Content, and Things That Are Hard to Find
Tools and content that is very important should be easily discovered, found, and accessed via the intranet’s navigation and search. The same is true, though to a lesser degree, of the less important elements. If you created Quicklinks to make sure that the important items are discoverable, the Quicklinks list may be just a bandage or safeguard for a subpar IA or site navigation.
Decide if the reason for the Quicklinks on your intranet is an answer to emails and calls about features employees can’t find. Or is it a precaution because you are concerned that people might not discover certain content or features?
Hard to find is not the same as hard to discover. You’ll get emails and calls when employees cannot find something on the intranet. But when they don’t know that a tool that could help them even exists, that potentially affects productivity and the bottom line. And people don't call support about tools they don't know exist. So the Quicklinks precaution is a logical short-term fix. But, try to use a more intuitive name than Quicklinks for the offered set of links. For a longer term fix, evaluating the IA and the navigation is recommended. Plan to do this as soon as possible.
Frequently Accessed Features
Employees should be able to quickly navigate to elements that they use often. If the IA and search work well, they may be enough to access the most-used intranet features. But maybe search and the global navigation are not enough. Maybe an employee does one activity all the time, or the tasks are incredibly important, or the employee is under great time pressure when she does the tasks. A multitude of situations may truly warrant one- or two-click access to key intranet features. If this is the case, consider one of the following design ideas to promote speedy access to features:
- Offer a personalized section with the person’s most-used features and content on the homepage; make that section available on all pages.
- Personalize the global navigation menus themselves, so the elements that the individual needs are served to her just in time.
- Offer a Favorites feature. Make it easy to find, use, edit, and access.
If none of the above UI’s are possible, and you need a short-term quick fix, then a Quicklinks-type of navigator may be the best solution now. If so, choose a label that is helpful, such as My Links. If using this feature in combination with favorites, ensure that the labels for the different features are distinct.
A Variety of Types of Links
On rare occasions, Quicklinks contains a bit of everything—most popular, most frequently used, most “important”. If the designers were to name these specifically, several panels of links (one for each type of content) would be necessary. So, one panel with all of the links can save space on pages. It can also focus the user’s attention on just one area instead of, say, 3. This can minimize memory load.
But there are drawbacks, and they usually outweigh the benefits. One issue surrounds deriving a concise term that describes the different types of content. It is nearly impossible to do. This issue would be less important if employees were taught about the links and told to look at them. But for a basic intranet design, no training should be required.
As for the content itself, it confuses users when some links in the list can be edited while others cannot. And it is disquieting when some links change or move, seemingly on their own, while others are static. So the memory-load savings gained by creating an all-in-one important links section will be negated by the fluctuating commands there.
Conclusion
Quick Links or Quicklinks UI component is a quick UI or IA fix that does not usually work well for employees. No matter how you spell the name of that component, do your best to avoid using it. Determine the reasons why the intranet offers Quicklinks. Note whether its purpose is acceptable or there are deeper IA, search, and navigation issues. Content reviews, card sorting, tree testing, and usability testing can greatly improve the IA, menus, and UX.
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