here, we're going to say that the average bond order is just the average number of chemical bonds between a pair of elements. Now a single bond has a bond order of one. A double bond has a bond order of two, so a triple bond would have a bond order of three. Now, remember, as the average bond order increases, that means the strength of the bond will increase and the length of the bond will decrease. So we'd say average bond order and bond strength are directly proportional. Both increased together, and they are inversely proportional to bond length, which decreases as they increase.