New design trend: Logos that change to show you they’re a ‘home’ link
July 3, 2009
8 Comments
Three's a trend. And five's a default. So here are five examples of sites whose logo is a link to the homepage - and who make this obvious by changing the image on mouseover / rollover (difference explained here). There are some tips on how to do it yourself at the end.
Amazon
Amazon logo changes to show it's a home link
Pampers
Pampers logo changes to show it's a home link
Facebook's logo
Waitrose
Waitrose logo changes to show it's a home link
Riverford
Riverford logo changes to show it's a home link
How to do this yourself
Some useful links:
- CSS image rollovers - this probably has all you need. But the following may help too (although CSS solutions are probably better than javascript ones - see CSS vs javascript) ...
- Create a rollover logo
- Using JavaScript, when a user mouses over an image, you can tell that image to switch to a different image
- Using CSS to change rollover image for link
- Double Image Rollover using Pure CSS
Is that really needed? If you know the logo is a link, wouldn't you know that it goes to the homepage? Lots of sites don't even bother with a "Home" link in the nav anymore.
it's probably not needed. But I think it's kind of helpful, especially for those not expert at the internet...
[...] Logos that change to show you they’re a ‘home’ link http://www.malcolmcoles.co.uk/blog/logos-change-home-link/ [...]
That's really interesting, thanks. Sometimes the simplest things, and the most obvious, get overlooked. I had a new logo made for my site. I was very pleased with it and the way our revamp was going - and then a friend suggested that we should make the logo a link back to the home page. What? It wasn't already? D'oh! How did we miss that one? Easily done, I guess.
Yes, I think people do expect the logo, top left for preference, to be a clickable link to the home page. Whether or not you actually have to spell out "this is a link to the HOME page" I'm not so sure about.
You run a website so you're probsbly not the typical user ... My dad, for instance, isn't very aware of the convention that the logo is a homepage link. It's not vital - I just think it's a nice touch for less confident users.
You're probably right that I'm not a typical web user. LOL! It's easy to forget that other people don't have the same background knowledge of someone who has, say, a decade of Internet experience behind them.
You get a lot of newbies who are still discovering this wonderful world of the Internet. It's important to try to keep them in their comfort zone. I find it kinda difficult because I don't like to have to spoon-feed people. (If I had enough money I would sack me from any customer service role.)
Getting back to the point - there are conventions which most people know about. If you go to one very extreme case, there's Jakob Nielsen and his take on usability (yuk!)and there are other people who move things forward and try to make the user experience more interactive and enjoyable. I think it's impossible to please all the people all the time. Maybe it's better to find your own niche and cater for your own particular audience.
I'd noticed this trend as well. I just went to show a colleague some examples but all of the sites you've mentioned (apart from Persil) have removed the feature. Is this from user testing? Did it not perform as well as expected? Some sites have re-included a home link into the navigation, others have removed it altogether and rely on the logo.
Luke - oh yes (apart from Pampers I presume you meant). How odd. Waitrose and Riverford have had a redesign - maybe it got taken off on purpose, maybe it got left out as not a high priority ... I introduced it on my blog I liked it as a feature so much - it's a bit odd to give no feedback that's something a link when you move the mouse over it.