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North Square completes its evaluation of the new Allerdale Council website. North Square has worked for 26 councils in the UK.
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(January 2008)
09 August 2007
The window title bar is the strip that runs across the very top of the browser. The bar is blue by default in Windows. The window title bar is created by using the <title> tag in the <head>.
Many users, especially advanced users, look at the window title bar to help identify where they are on a website. The window title bar becomes more important on slower connections and narrowband devices such as mobile phones which display the window title bar before anything else on the page has loaded. They instantly tell users where they are, and therefore whether they have reached the page that they intended to reach.
Browsers use the window title bar text as the default page name when a user selects to bookmark a page.
Search engines make use of the window title bar in 2 ways:
The window title bar must start with a word or phrase most associated with the website. In most cases this will be the company name. Companies that begin with 'The' or 'A' in the company name should drop these from the beginning of the window title bar. For example, The New York Times would use New York Times. The domain suffix should not be included unless it is part of the company name.
Every window title should use descriptive keywords to communicate the page's content. Given that the link label and page label (which should be the same) should also follow the same rule, it often makes sense to duplicate the link label/page label in the window title bar. For example, on the North Square website, we have an About Us page:
North Square Interactive – About Us
More complex websites that have many sections could add the section to the window title bar. For example:
Media.com – Blank Media – Sony 10 pack cake box £8.99
On pages that are likely to be bookmarked, developers should be aware of other factors when writing text:
Ideally, the window title should not exceed sixty four characters. This is due to the limited character space in the leading browsers.
The homepage should describe the purpose of the whole website. This should follow the keyword that starts the window title (normally the company name). For example:
Amazon.com: Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers…
by David Miller
Website Analyst,
North Square Interactive
North Square Interactive is an online consultancy that delivers cost effective, best practice, Website Evaluation reports, Usability Testing, Website Competitor Analysis, Accessibility Audits, Browser Testing, and more. For further information about all of our services, please visit our Online Consultancy Index.
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