Do you type in "www." before a web address?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

No of course not. This is not only incredibly pointless with modern browsers and how almost all URLs work (like seriously, why would anyone bother to take the time to type out www.uselectionatlas.org to reach this site?), it's actually a really awful habit since non-tech people will often type in "www." before every URL they're given even if not stated, and if it has a subdomain before the main domain (such as accounts.google.com) it won't work if the www. is added before. And as anyone who's worked a tech support job that involves directing people to subdomained websites can tell you, this is not just a small minority of really technically incompetent people who do this, but actually most people who are over the age of 40 and not tech geeks.

I heard about this once for a company that did a test before job interviews. The applicant was given a sheet with a list of instructions to follow on the company's web site. The first step listed was "Type in companyname.com on the browser's URL bar". If the applicant typed in "www.companyname.com" instead of "companyname.com" the interview ended there and they were not hired.

I actually think it's probably been a decade since I've typed in "www." before a website name...(the exception being one of my credit card's sites that's the rare website that requires the www, and thus it throws me off and I enter it incorrectly at first half the time.)

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

It's not lazy, it's efficient. It's also the only way to view Tumblr pages.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Not usually, no.

I heard about this once for a company that did a test before job interviews. The applicant was given a sheet with a list of instructions to follow on the company's web site. The first step listed was "Type in companyname.com on the browser's URL bar". If the applicant typed in "www.companyname.com" instead of "companyname.com" the interview ended there and they were not hired.

That is absurdly draconian.

Anyone who's ever worked in any IT or tech job will tell you it makes sense. Technical instructions need to be followed verbatim. Throwing in things or leaving them out because of habit or because you feel that's how it normally should be done results in things not working. For an example, check this out, which is probably one of the most browsed pages on the web:

https://maps.google.com

And now click on this:

https://www.maps.google.com

And now you see why adding www. before a URL if not specifically specified is not an acceptable web browsing habit.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Not usually, no.

I heard about this once for a company that did a test before job interviews. The applicant was given a sheet with a list of instructions to follow on the company's web site. The first step listed was "Type in companyname.com on the browser's URL bar". If the applicant typed in "www.companyname.com" instead of "companyname.com" the interview ended there and they were not hired.

That is absurdly draconian.

Anyone who's ever worked in any IT or tech job will tell you it makes sense. Technical instructions need to be followed verbatim. Throwing in things or leaving them out because of habit or because you feel that's how it normally should be done results in things not working. For an example, check this out, which is probably one of the most browsed pages on the web:

https://maps.google.com

And now click on this:

https://www.maps.google.com

And now you see why adding www. before a URL if not specifically specified is not an acceptable web browsing habit.

Your test is dumb. If you asked me to visit google.com, I would have typed http://www.google.com. If you asked me to visit maps.google.com, I would have typed http://maps.google.com because I know better. But I still will type www when it can be there because that's.. not implicitly the wrong thing to do. I know it's wrong when a subdomain is present. It also takes me three hundredths of a second to type.

Unfortunately most people don't think this way. Trust me I deal with such a case almost every day. Either they don't type in the www. at all, or if you direct them to appleid.apple.com they will type in www.appleid.apple.com

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The library website at ODU is actually www.lib.odu.edu   It used to be that if I just typed in lib.odu.edu there'd be an error, but they've fixed that now. So there's no hard and fast rule about when to put it in and when not to.

However if I was referring someone to that website I would actually tell them to type in "www.lib.odu.edu". In the www. is required, then it'll be included in tech instructions. Not too difficult of a concept.