[19] Fuddruckers: World's Greatest Hamburgers. 2003. <http://www.fuddruckers.com/fudds-home.html> (efferent)

Text Menu




Fuddruckers hamburger site provides the usual fare for companies (about us, franchise opportunities, career opportunities, gift cards, merchandise, news). However, on the front node of the "main site" anchors for this content are all tucked into a big cheeseburger. Mouse over the cheeseburger and selectively animated anchors appear. There are no external hints about how many anchors there are on the graphic (which contrasts with sites such as Saturn [60] and Garnier Fructis [20] that provide squares or dots to indicate anchors overlaid on a graphic map). The reader, bereft of visual cues, relies on either navigation (mousing around until something appears) or content.

Exploring the great cheeseburger

Exploratory unseen anchors invite return visits with the underlying promise of more hidden treasures. We go back to the same screen wondering what other parts will lead to. Hidden anchors compel the reader to explore the node carefully and to be alert to what "yields." However, the allure of the exploration depends on what readers expect to find. Where readers may want to explore Zenobia, Queen of Palmyria's [10] hidden anchors to increase the depths of their understanding of the polyvalent poem, readers may not have the same expectation of an efferent site.

Indeed, Fuddruckers' map seems to merely frustrate the reader, who must scroll over a large cheeseburger to find practical options such as purchasing gift certificates. The eye catching cheeseburger may make readers hungry, but does little to satisfy that hunger with a direct address for the restaurant. Return visitors either remember where the material is or bookmark the desired information directly.

Vincent Flanders WebPagesThatSuck.com [87] terms sites that use hidden anchors "mystery meat" and holds up Fuddruckers as a prime example of this non-illiative cuisine. Flanders assumes that "web design is not about art, it's about making money (or disseminating information). " His conclusion is obvious: "To make money, you don't want to design a site that might confuse someone." He thus deplores mystery meat navigation as it "confuses people because you have to find the navigational system and then mouse over each image to determine where it will take you." (Note that Flanders' scorn is not limited to invisible anchors such as Fuddruckers but extends to confusing visible icons such as the Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children [58].) Fuddruckers shows the frustration here--it takes about longer to find the information desired because the reader must scroll over so much territory to uncover the link. There are no natural connections--readers don't usually correlate jalapenos with career opportunities.

 


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