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> Corporate Web Site Content Design Failures
Corporate Web Site Content Design Failures
- by Joel Walsh
Examining the failures of the Web site content design
of many enormous consumer corporations.
[From Andrea Wilson: At Able Webs we encourage customers
to concentrate on building a professional image with their
Web site (attractive, clean design; good content; contact
page/information; intuitive navigation).
Branding is for the big guys with huge advertising budgets.
The job of your Web site is to stop the visitor from clicking
away the moment they land on your page...or in other words
to provide enough "stickiness" that they "stick
around" to read your content! Want a Web site like that?
Read this article, then call us today at 604-526-4397
or send an email to
andrea@ablewebs.com!]
When you think of the world's most successful businesses,
what names come to mind? Most likely, consumer-oriented giants
such as Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Sheraton, Disney, IBM, and
General Electric. Not only have they spent billions on advertising
to buy their way into your head. They offer convenient products
and services that have made them a part of your life.
But when you think of the most successful Web sites, what
names come to mind? Names like Google, Yahoo! Amazon, AOL,
Kazaa (for better or worse), and Hotmail.
The late-1990s mantra about the Web being a disruptive technology
that would destroy traditional companies may have been overstated.
But a decade and a half into the Web's existence, it is clear
that the world's leading corporations have been sidelined
on the Web.
The biggest shopping site is not walmart.com but amazon.com.
The biggest map site is not randmcnally.com but mapquest.com.
Established companies have usually only been able to buy
their way into this market through acquisitions (as with Microsoft's
purchase of Hotmail, which it used as a base for creating
MSN).
Why, with few exceptions, were the world's most successful
Web sites not launched by the world's most successful corporations?
Many Big Name Companies' Web Sites a Vast Waste of Time
for Visitors
The McDonald's Web site talks about food, but has no real
menu. The Coca-Cola USA Web site has no clear ingredients
list or nutritional information, no recipes for floats or
mixed drinks, no company history, and nothing else useful
to people who like Coke. All that information has been inexplicably
located on the "company" page, which on every other
Web site is used for investor relations. The Johnson and Johnson
Web site has useful information if you can access it-when
the author attempted to open it, it crashed two different
Web browsers (Internet Explorer and Mozilla) before finally
yielding (to the Opera browser).
Many big-name companies' Web sites offer lessons in what
not to do in Web design. The biggest lesson by far is not
to sacrifice usability in an attempt to look cool, and never
forget why your users came to your site in the first place.
McDonald's may be the world's largest restaurant chain, but
it didn't get that way because of its Web site.
Why Big-Budget Websites Are More Often Bombs than Blockbusters
The Web sites of many successful corporations (both B2C and
B2B) are like big-budget Hollywood movies that spend millions
on stars and special effects, and a quarter of a percent of
the budget on the script. Worse, the special effects of blockbuster
Web sites are far more annoying than impressive.
Special Effect that Bombs Number 1: Flash!
When Web sites don't offer any content-any useful information
to read-what do they put up there instead? Spinning Coke bottles.
Chicken McNuggets and French fries that zoom out toward you
when you position your cursor over them. Changing pictures
of generic-looking office buildings and men in suits (on the
Web site of real estate giant CB Richard Ellis-but that essentially
describes the generic look of many corporate Web sites).
Of course, Flash can be used as a way to present content-words,
both printed and recorded, and pictures that actually illustrate
something. But more often, it is used to impress. And most
often, it ends up annoying. Who wants to spend the better
part of a minute waiting for a rotation of generic pictures
of smiling models?
Special Effect that Bombs Number 2: Splash Screens
You type in duracell.com expecting information on batteries-which
you will find, if you have the patience not to hit the "back"
button while the site shows a picture of a battery revolving
painfully slowly. On www.mcdonalds.com you're met with pictures
of happy children playing with Ronald McDonald and a menu
to select what country you're from. Johnson's and Johnson's
Web site shows a logo before automatically redirecting you
to the main page-that is if it doesn't crash your browser
first (which happened when the author tried to access the
page on May 2, 2004 ).
Another way big consumer corporations' Web sites from Schick
to Mercedes-Benz to Thomas Cooke waste your time with splash
pages is by making you choose what country you're visiting
from. This could have been detected automatically, or at least,
useful worldwide content could have been placed on the homepage,
with an option to choose a country prominently displayed.
Splash pages are the internet equivalent of making patrons
wait in line out front before letting them inside. Unless
a site belongs to a night club or a professional services
firm with too much business, this can't be a good idea. On
the Web, where the "back" button and the URL bars loom temptingly,
making people wait is business suicide.
Special Effect that Bombs Number 3: Overbuilt or Badly Built
"Dynamic" Functionality
Every Web surfer has a story about a shopping cart that malfunctioned
just when they were about to click "purchase" on something
they really wanted. Or a detailed form that lost all the information
after the "submit" button was pressed. When there are so many
good "dynamic" sites out there, why are there still so many
bad ones? Part of the problem may be overbuilding and needless
custom design. There are already excellent Open Source databases
out there, which can be endlessly customized and updated by
any skilled designer. Yet many companies prefer to spend their
money reinventing the wheel so they can have their own proprietary
technology, even if it doesn't work.
Sometimes, dynamic content can distort the way an entire
site presents itself. If the dynamic content is so complex
that it presents problems for many users, it is unlikely the
dynamic content is worth it. On disney.com, your first greeting
is a message that your computer is sufficiently up-to-date
(or not) to handle the site. Is that really the magical and
fun impression you want to give visitors?
About the Author
Joel Walsh is the founder, owner, and head writer of UpMarket,
an online
copywriting / internet marketing services firm & Web content
provider to small and medium-sized businesses.
At Able Webs, we know what should and
what shouldn't go on each page of your Web site!
Discover how Able Webs can help you succeed online. Give
us a call at 604-526-4397 or...
Request
a Free Web Design Consultation Today
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