Home button vs Logo link?

Question

Is a "home" button on the navigation required if there is a link to the homepage using the company's logo?

Increasingly I have noticed more and more websites using the logo as a link to return to home instead of a clear Home button in the navigation but haven't found any good proof or research to suggest that this is best approach.

Is there a best practice guidelines or some kind of criteria (e.g. advanced users vs beginners) that should aid in making this decision.

Any thoughts or comments would be appreciated. Thanks

Answer 1

It depends on the audience of the site. For a site like UX Exchange, where people understand the web deeply, the logo link would suffice. That saves screen real estate and lessens visual noise.

For others, having both is best. Facebook, among many other sites, has both. It tracks the number of clicks by having distinct URLs (if you come from the homepage, http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo and http://www.facebook.com/#!/?ref=home ). Their tracking of clicks must have given them reasons to retain having the two links.

Answer 2

I'd always link the logo to the homepage. It's a convention that many of us are used to and it's frustrating when it doesn't work.

For visitors who aren't familiar with the convention, I'd suggest making it more discoverable by adding a cue on hover. Especially if you're doing away with the Home button.

For instance, if you hover over the logo on any Amazon page - other than the homepage - you get this:

Answer 3

If you look at some quantitative data that SURL (The Software Usability Research lab) published a few years ago (now down, old version via archive.org), the expected location of the home link is on the top left of the page:

This doesn't point towards a preference for logo versus explicit text link, but it shows where users expect the link. Using some qualitative research you can find out if your users will understand.

It really does depend on your site. Amazon do the nice rollover state, Apple use their logo, Facebook uses the logo. I think that we're moving towards logo only being the standard, but you do need to cater for your particular users.

Answer 4

this is so funny, I was JUST going back and forth with my team about this this week ona project we're working on. They agreed that the logo should link back to home - I think everyone responding is in agreement on that - but I think the question really should be "Do we still need to include a home button in the nav?" They didn't want a home nav button, and I had put one in there.

I almost always do, just because I feel that unless you're cramped for nav space, there's no reason not to. I wouldn't normally fight for it, but in this particular case, although one user set will be young and tech savvy, there is another, less-savvy group that could potentially be using the site to buy that younger, tech-savvy group the prodct as a gift. Making gifting easy was a core business requirement, so they clearly acknowledge that there will be many visitors to the site that are not actually going to be the product's end-user, but they overruled me and the home button was removed from the nav.

I haven't been able to find anything definitive in terms of standards one way or the other - I guess I just always include a home button out of habit, or out of concern for the older generation that doesn't always pick up interface designs that have become unofficial standards over time. I'm really curious to see if there is any hard data on this. I don't want to be designing UI's a particular way simply because it's a habit, but on the other hand I feel that hiding something as important as your homepage through obscure navigation doesn't seem wise.

Answer 5

Many users don't know about logo link convention, so it's best to have a clear signpost for homepage.

Answer 6

The logo should definitely link back to the home page (except when you are already on the home page). It has pretty much become a standard at this point - people expect it.

As for the Home button itself, I couldn't find any recent studies on that. I have done sites that include it and others that don't. Normally, I leave it as a business decision - if they demand it, I put it in, otherwise I leave it out. I can definitely say that recently, fewer and fewer clients have really wanted it there for the exact reason as above - the general understanding that the logo takes you to the home page is strong enough that they don't feel it's necessary and can use that screen real estate for something else.

Answer 7

I don't know of any research into this but have noticed the same trend becoming more and more popular. The guys at Fhoke blogged about it a few months ago.

I'm not aware of any concrete proof that it either helps or hinders a users experience, but it seems to be widely accepted that the logo returns you to the home page so I presume that if a home button isn't present the default action would be to click the logo. I'd be interested to see if anyone had carried out any testing to specifically look into this.

Answer 8

I put both links since not everyone is familiar with the fact that clicking the logo takes them back to the homepage.

Also another reason I do this is to not lose the ability to highlight the current section (in the navigation) when you're on the homepage. There are a plenty of sites out there that have homepages with URIs like http://example.com/page/?something=something, which could mislead users into thinking that they're not on the homepage (or that they're in the homepage of a sub-section or something).

Hope this helps.

Answer 9

Linking homepage from logo in interor pages is an standard. You should do user testing to see how unskilled users can back to homepage. I like to have breadcrumb navigation that links home and upper categories. Others prefer include Home as a global navigation option.

Answer 10

One aspect to consider is whether the user even needs to go home in the common use case. For sites like facebook where the home page provides lots of function it makes sense to make it very clear how to get home.

With a site like amazon, the home page provides little function other than advertising for various amazon services at the time, but most users are looking for something specific and will spend most of their time in search or categories. They will probably never need to return to the home page. In such a case they could almost get away with not having a home button at all!

Answer 11

If the logo is inline with the other navigation (and is on the left), I think an additional 'Home' button is not required. (Example: http://stackexchange.com)

[Logo][About Us][General Information]

If the logo is not inline with the other navigation (e.g. above the navigation bar), I think a home button is useful. (Example: http://www.copyright.gov/)

[........... Logo ............]
[About Us][General Information]

Are You Putting Your Home Button to Good Use? in Smashing Magazine
"Research shows that a clickable logo isn’t yet a universally understood way of returning home even though it is widely used that way. Leaving out a dedicated home button in the navigation risks confusing many users, but that isn’t stopping the practice from gaining popularity."

Answer 12

Most commonly we highlight the button of the page we are on using a reverse color, bold or an underline, that clearly indicates a site map of the page we are on. A logo may be difficult to reverse, underline or bold.