As I was working on a project for a client to redesign a login-protected site for their members, we discovered that members were often confused as to when they are on the member-only site, or on a part of the client's public site. We recommended that the member-only site have strong branding (or banner) to indicate that the member is logged in and on the member-only site. I found myself wondering whether we should recommend little symbols next to links that indicate when the member is leaving the member-only site.

Here are some other sites that use them:

• Wikipedia (see links in "References")
• IBM (see link to "Get Adobe Reader")

It would be nice to have links to offsite resources be consistently represented with these little symbols, but there are 2 main issues that hinder this. Firstly, these symbols aren't used across the internet enough for most users to recognize what these are, and consequently they go unnoticed. Secondly, and maybe more importantly, it take "effort" to consistently place these symbols next to links that go offsite. In the case of Wikipedia, I assume it automated through the wiki software, but where an administrator need to individually handcode these links, it may be too much of a hassle to find a wider adoption.