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Index

10 May, 2025 – 3 min read

Guide thoughtfully

Written by Shaun Jenkins

Click a link on most websites, and you’re instantly somewhere else. One moment you’re here, the next, you’re there – no transition, no sense of travel, just an abrupt shift in context. Menus in the digital realm often fare little better, appearing from some unseen dimension with a click or hover, then vanishing just as mysteriously.

This emergence from nothingness, this instantaneous teleportation, runs counter to how we naturally orient ourselves. Even in abstract digital spaces, our minds try to construct a sense of place, a mental map. When interfaces disregard this, the experience can be jarring. Wikipedia defines a hyperlink as a reference “the user can follow or be guided to,” yet that latter, crucial aspect of guidance is frequently overlooked. Indeed, the hyperlink hasn’t fundamentally evolved much since its original implementation by Sir Tim Berners-Lee.

Consider other designed experiences. Architects meticulously plan pathways to guide us through physical buildings, creating intuitive flow and a clear understanding of space (well, some Architects do anyway). Game designers craft immersive worlds where players are subtly and effectively guided, always maintaining a sense of their position and direction. The web, for all its interconnectedness, often neglects these fundamental principles of guided experience.

But what if digital navigation felt more like an exploration, a journey with a tangible sense of continuity? Recently, I’ve been working on interfaces that explore this – for instance, turning menus into a grid of pages where clicking an item makes you feel as though you zoom into it, retaining context, rather than having something new abruptly appear. The very site you’re reading this on is that site: rethinking how we transition between pieces of information to create a more coherent sense of movement. It’s an experiment in trying to live up to that ideal of being guided.

The World Wide Web isn’t a physical location, but our minds still seek to map the digital territories we traverse. When our tools for navigation are abrupt and context-less, it’s akin to being teleported between disconnected rooms in a poorly designed building, or randomly dropped into different levels of a confusing game. The result is often a feeling of disorientation.

I believe this contributes significantly to the sense of being overwhelmed that many experience when interacting with computers. Creating a better sense of place online isn’t just a matter of aesthetic preference or smoother animations; it’s about respecting our cognitive need for orientation. It’s a design choice, a challenge we can embrace with intent: to build digital experiences that guide us thoughtfully.