URLs are part of the interface
A link is a small promise that something will still be there. Why stable, readable addresses deserve a place in the design process.
In this entry
We tend to think of an interface as the things on a screen: buttons, type, navigation. But a web address is an interface too. People copy it, save it, share it, and return to it.
This example entry is a short design note on making those addresses dependable.
Give a document a stable home
An article’s subject can outlive the category it was first placed in. Keeping the category out of the article address makes reorganizing the journal less disruptive.
/posts/urls-are-part-of-the-interface/The address above describes the document without encoding a changing navigation structure.
Redirect a move
When an address has to change, a permanent redirect gives the old link somewhere useful to go. It should lead directly to the current article rather than a chain of historical addresses.
A canonical URL is another signal: it identifies the preferred address when similar or duplicate versions of a page exist. It should agree with the address used in internal links and the sitemap.
Keep discovery ordinary
An ordinary HTML link is enough for moving between articles, categories, and pages of an archive. It works without a script and makes the structure easier to inspect.
The web has many elaborate capabilities. A durable document address is one of its simplest, and it is still worth designing carefully.