Sorry, I guess I hadn't made my question that clear - I had already made the assumption that any printed urls would be short and memorable (thinking of BBC guidelines, SEO, common sense and just about every other argument I can think of), but my question was really based on user experience and behaviour so that this approach can be fine tuned.
Even if you do print 'simple' urls, do people use them? Anecdotally I'd say rarely (a problem I have here is that the urls we have printed in the past always match existing links, so there's no way of differentiating users who have come in through that channel - I've always meant to try printing a unique URL to tease out this issue - has anyone ever done this?)
If you just print your home page, is that really providing a good end-to-end experience for users if it is then hard to find the content they were looking for? Of course good IA, signposting and search can all contribute
Is there a middle ground where you publish a very small number of key urls e.g. www.kew.org/plants (which exists) & www.kew.org/250 (for our birthday next year) and then have landing/portal pages that make it relatively easy to find something more specific?
Or do you just accept that everyone will Google you (as a previous responder suggested), which is fine for unique brand names but becomes tricky for interpretation on subjects like 'climate change' and 'desert plants' (although we're working on that!)
Whilst 2D bar-codes and other new methods have their appeal, we have to think of the typical audience reading our signs. Likewise I personally love the idea of typing my email address into a screen and getting it to send me links that I then pick up at home, but we can't really do that under every tree. But each does have its use and potential application.
Cheers,
James
----------------------------------------------------------------------
James Morley [log in to unmask]
Website Manager Tel. +44 (0)20 8332 5759
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew www.kew.org
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
> Behalf Of Ottevanger, Jeremy
> Sent: Monday, December 08, 2008 3:44 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Putting web addresses on interpretation
>
> Yup, that's what we do and I'm sure pretty much everyone else too!
> Jeremy
>
>
>
> Jeremy Ottevanger
> Web Developer, Museum Systems Team
> Museum of London
> 46 Eagle Wharf Road
> London. N1 7ED
> Tel: 020 7410 2207
> Fax: 020 7600 1058
> Email: [log in to unmask]
> www.museumoflondon.org.uk Museum of London is changing. Visit
> www.museumoflondon.org.uk to find out more.
> Explore how the Great Fire shaped the city
> www.museumoflondon.org.uk/londonsburning
> Before printing, please think about the environment
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
> Behalf Of Tony Crockford
> Sent: 08 December 2008 15:41
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [MCG] Putting web addresses on interpretation
>
> I'm wondering if the obvious is being overlooked?
>
> it's technically trivial to rewrite urls on most webservers,
> so that http://www.domainname.com/easytotype
> can be redirected to the appropriate 'proper but unmemorable' URI.
>
> So wouldn't it make sense, from an analytics POV as well, to
> have memorable urls printed on handout materials and then you
> can manipulate and track at the server end.
>
> Personally, I often pick up leaflets and key in the url
> printed there- on for more info (after that I'd bookmark!)
>
> You could also set up 'landing pages' that mirror the
> leaflet and have live links?
>
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