--- title: "Information Scent" url: "https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/information-scent" language: "en" description: "What is information scent? A plain explanation with its origins, an example and practical tips. Learn how clear link text guides people to their goal." published: "2026-10-14T15:20:22+02:00" updated: "2026-10-14T15:20:22+02:00" --- # Information Scent Information scent describes how well people can judge from cues like link text whether a click will lead them to what they are looking for. - **Buchstabe:** I - **Englischer Begriff:** Information Scent UX glossary · engl. Information Scent # Information Scent Information scent describes how well people can judge from cues like link text whether a click will lead them to what they are looking for. Imagine you want to find out on your city council’s website how to renew your ID card. The menu shows “Citizen Services”, “Living in the City” and “Town Hall News”. Any of them could fit, none fits clearly. You click at random, end up on an events page and go back. After the third miss, you give up and search Google instead. What’s missing here is a good trail. ## Explained simply Information scent describes how well people can judge, based on cues, whether a link or page will lead them to what they’re looking for. The comparison comes from the animal world: an animal follows the scent of food. On websites, people follow cues like link text, headings and images. If the scent gets stronger, they keep going. If it gets weaker, they turn back or give up. The term comes from information foraging theory, which models how people hunt for information the way animals forage for food. Peter Pirolli and Stuart Card developed it in the 1990s at the PARC research center in Palo Alto. They took models from behavioral ecology that describe how animals weigh effort against reward when foraging and applied them to information seeking. In 1999, they published the theory in the journal Psychological Review. ## What makes up the scent Nielsen Norman Group describes information scent, in essence, as people’s estimate of how much value a source will deliver. That estimate draws on two things. First, what people see: the link text, a short description next to it, images and the surrounding page. Second, what they already know: experience with a brand, domain knowledge or recommendations from others. One key point: scent is always relative to the goal. A “Plans” link smells strong to someone comparing prices and weak to someone who wants to report an outage. It’s also only an estimate. It can lead people astray, and that’s exactly when frustration and drop-offs happen. Closely related is [information architecture](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/information-architecture). It decides which terms appear in menus and on overview pages in the first place. You can read more in [An Introduction to Information Architecture](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/blog/introduction-to-information-architecture). ## An example Back to the city council, as an example of a redesign. Before: three vague menu items that promise everything and nothing. After: the team runs a [tree test](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/tree-testing) to see which labels people expect their tasks under. One section is now called “ID Cards, Passports and Registration”, with the most common tasks listed below it. The target page opens with the heading “Renew your ID card”. Anyone who clicks sees right away: this is the right place. ## In practice - **Write link text that describes the destination.** “Learn more” or internal product names give no scent. Words from your audience’s own vocabulary do. - **Confirm the scent on the landing page.** The heading and first screen should echo the promise of the link. Otherwise people start to doubt and turn back. - **Skip the clickbait.** Sensational teasers bring clicks in the short term. But people who feel misled trust the next links less. ## Related terms [Information Architecture](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/information-architecture), [Tree Testing](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/tree-testing), [Card Sorting](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/card-sorting), [UX Writing](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/ux-writing) ## Sources - [Peter Pirolli and Stuart Card: Information Foraging. Psychological Review 106 (4), 1999](https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.106.4.643) - [Raluca Budiu: Information Scent: How Users Decide Where to Go Next. Nielsen Norman Group, 2020](https://www.nngroup.com/articles/information-scent/) ## More terms [ ### A/B Testing An A/B test is an experiment that shows two versions of a page or element at the same time to randomly split groups of visitors. It lets you decide with real data which version works better. ](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/a-b-testing) [ ### ARIA ARIA is a W3C standard that adds roles, states and properties to HTML. It tells screen readers what an element is and how it currently behaves. ](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/aria) [ ### Accessibility Accessibility means designing websites, apps and digital documents so that everyone can use them, including people with visual, hearing, motor or cognitive disabilities. ](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/accessibility) [ ### Affordance An affordance describes what action an object makes possible and whether people can recognize it: a button invites you to press it, a handle invites you to pull. ](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/affordance) [ ### Alt Text Alt text is a short text version of an image, stored in the HTML alt attribute. Screen readers read it aloud so people who can’t see the image get the same information. ](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/alt-text) [ ### Atomic Design Atomic Design is a method for building user interfaces from small, reusable building blocks, from single elements like buttons all the way up to complete pages. ](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/atomic-design) [ ### BFSG The BFSG, Germany’s Accessibility Strengthening Act, has required many companies since 28 June 2025 to make certain products and digital services, such as online shops, accessible. ](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/bfsg) [ ### Card Sorting Card sorting is a research method in which people sort terms written on cards into groups. It shows you how they mentally organize content, so you can plan navigation that makes sense to them. ](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/card-sorting) [ ### Cognitive Load Cognitive load is the mental effort it takes to understand and use an interface. The less unnecessary thinking a design demands, the easier the actual task becomes. ](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/cognitive-load) [ ### Color Vision Deficiency A color vision deficiency means someone has a harder time telling certain colors apart than most people. The most common type is red-green deficiency. ](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/color-vision-deficiency) [ ### Contextual Inquiry Contextual inquiry is a research method where you observe and interview people in their real work environment. It shows you how they actually get tasks done, not just how they describe it. ](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/contextual-inquiry) [ ### Contrast Ratio The contrast ratio describes how much two colors differ in brightness, such as text and background. WCAG requires at least 4.5:1 for normal text. ](https://www.insideuxdesign.com/en/glossar/contrast-ratio)