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Information scent 0:55
A 55-second explainer of Information scent, narrated over the same demo you can try yourself.
Try the interactive Information scent demo
What this video covers
Information scent is how strongly a link or label hints that it leads to what you're after. Like an animal following a trail, people follow the cues that smell most like their goal - so clear, goal-matching labels pull them confidently forward, while vague ones leave them sniffing around, unsure which way to go.
With vague labels you had to guess and poke around - no link smelled like the answer. With scented labels the right path almost announced itself, because the words matched what you were looking for. That's information scent: people follow the cues that resemble their goal, so the clearer the label points at the destination, the faster and more confidently they move.
