Term
Information Scent
Proximal cues — link text, headings, buttons — that users follow to predict whether a path leads to what they want.
Coined in Pirolli and Card’s information-foraging research, information scent is the perceived value of a link or navigation cue before the user follows it. People decide whether to click based on local signals: the wording of a button, the heading of a section, the icons and tooltips nearby. Strong scent means the destination is predictable from the cue; weak scent means the user has to guess.
When CTAs say “Get Started” but lead to an email wall, the scent is misleading. The cue suggests learning or browsing; the destination demands commitment. Users feel tricked, even when nothing was deliberately misrepresented — the language failed to encode the actual cost of clicking.
The practical fix is to make labels destination-revealing: “See pricing,” “Browse plans,” “Start checkout,” “Apply now.” Each tells the user what comes next, so the click is a confirmation rather than a gamble.