The Cult of Friendly URLs

URL design is really important. Important enough that we mustn't let a cult of 'friendly URL' despots screw it up for everybody.

During this discussion I'll sound off about the fundamentals of URL design. Why it should be included upfront as part of the high-level design of the site IA and UX design, and how getting it right helps web-based products successfully fit into the wider ecosystem of the web. How can you optimise URLs for different requirements, such as readability (by humans and machines), shareability, hackability, navigability, etc...?

Transcript

1. @andyhume UX Camp Brighton • 1st October 2011 FRIENDLY URLS THE CULT OF
2. WHAT IS FRIENDLY? readable/clean reflect structure and hierarchy of data hackable shareable
3. They help orient users in your architecture. [avoid] exposing the mechanism of how you run your server. “ “ Jesse James Garrett Tim Berners-Lee
4. WHAT IS FRIENDLY? /cgibin/post.pl?id=13213 /post?id=13213 /posts/?year=2008&month=feb&day=23 /posts/2008/feb/23/ /post?id=13213 /post/my-blog-post /posts/2008/feb/23/ /posts/2008/jan/23/
5. Clean URLs, RESTful URLs or user- friendly URLs are purely structural URLs that do not contain a query string “ Wikipedia
6. Clean URLs, RESTful URLs or user- friendly URLs are purely structural URLs that do not contain a query string “ Wikipedia
7. STILL FRIENDLY? /place/lat/50.81754/lon/-0.03124/category/banks/poi/cashpoint YOUR WEBSITE IS YOUR API
8. REST... ANYONE? Um... Friendly URLs Er... Not SOAP Hm... Flickr API “
9. ROY FIELDING Why is the web successful?
10. UNIFORM INTERFACE GET POST DELETE RESOURCE ORIENTED /photos/12345 DOING THINGS TO OBJECTS
11. AN HTTP REQUEST GET /photos/12345 Host: www.flickr.com GET /my-bucket/pdf/12345.pdf Host: aws.amazon.com
12. QUERY STRINGS ...contain data to be passed to web applications. “ Wikipedia the knobs of URLs “ Kyle Neath, Github
13. RESOURCE OR SEARCH? /UK/Sussex/Brighton/North+Laine THIS IS A SEARCH BASED ON A STRING /maps/?q=North+Laine, Brighton, Sussex, UK THIS IS A REQUEST FOR A DISTINCT RESOURCE
14. WARNING SIGNS /typefaces/slabserif/clarendonbracketed/tags/rubbish INTERCHANGEBLE DIRECTORIES /nuts/salted/toasted/kosher /nuts/salted/kosher/toasted RETURNS EMPTY LIST NOT 404
15. AMAZON http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sharp-LC40LE811E-40-inch-Freeview- Technology/dp/B003IC4F58/ref=sr_1_1? ie=UTF8&qid=1317461997&sr=8-1
16. THE INDEPENDENT http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/kate- middleton-jelly-bean-expected-to-fetch-500-2269573.html http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/utter-PR- fiction-but-people-love-this-shit-so-fuck-it-lets-just-print- it-2269573.html
17. TWITTER http://twitter.com/#!/andyhume
18. FACETED SEARCH /cars?brand=ford&model=escort&year=1980 FULL HIERARCHY /cars/ford/escort/1980 FULL QUERY STRING /cars/ford/escort?year=1980 RANDOM SEPARATOR /cars/ford,escort,1980 HIERARCHY/QUERYSTRING HYBRID
19. APPLICATION STATE /maps/Sussex/Brighton/North+Laine THIS IS APPLICATION STATE /maps? f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=clearleft&aq=&sll=50.819522, -0.13642&sspn=0.197161,0.313454&g=brighton&ie=UTF8&z=12&iwl THIS IS A RESOURCE
20. WHAT’S THE POINT? ...of making application state data friendly/clean? ...of exposing application state to users? ...of address bars? BIG POINT GOES HERE
21. WATCH OUT ...for people trying to ‘friendlyerise’ application state ...for people trying to ‘friendlyerise’ search queries BIG POINT GOES HERE