"Let's say you want to see The Wall St. Journal's articles on technology. Where would you click in this screenshot?"
I agree. I, too, would click on the "Technology" text, expecting to be take to a list of technology articles.
However, if you'd asked me: "Let's say you want to see the first article in The Wall St. Journal's Technology section, where would you click?"
I would answer just the same: The technology text should take me to the first article in the Technology section, not some parenthesized number.
I think there are situations in Usability where you have to chose the lesser of two evils, and expect your users to adapt to what you've made. This would be one example of that. I would expect that learning to click on the parenthesized numbers to show an enumeration of articles would happen quite quickly.
I agree. I, too, would click on the "Technology" text, expecting to be take to a list of technology articles.
However, if you'd asked me: "Let's say you want to see the first article in The Wall St. Journal's Technology section, where would you click?"
I would answer just the same: The technology text should take me to the first article in the Technology section, not some parenthesized number.
I think there are situations in Usability where you have to chose the lesser of two evils, and expect your users to adapt to what you've made. This would be one example of that. I would expect that learning to click on the parenthesized numbers to show an enumeration of articles would happen quite quickly.