HotHouse makes brands work for people online

Pressure to deliver a return on investment (ROI) on corporate websites means that site design is everyone’s business, as HotHouse managing director Simon van Wyk writes.

Most websites still don’t deliver on user needs, and the result is frustration, lost opportunity and lost sales.

User Interface Engineering, a Us research firm reported recently that half of all transactions on the web fail, because users fail to reach their goal (for ecommerce transactions, the figure is 65 percent). Meanwhile, only 30% of users find what they need on a site using search, compared to a 53% success rate when they use only links within the site to search for information.

Customers are finding little value in business website content. Forrester Research reported recently that Web users visit manufacturers’ sites to research products - and 84% of these active prospects expect those sites to provide the best product information. But only 45% offer relevant and complete content.

According to the Forrester report, (Get ROI from Design, 2001) “Even though consumers, business customers and site executives underscore the need for a great user experience, most Web efforts don’t deliver it…. User experience matters, but most sites don’t deliver.”

‘Pitiful’ user design

In the early days of the Internet, executives could throw their hands up and plead ignorance at how this new technology was supposed to work. But the blame for bad user design can no longer be laid at the feet of the graphic designers and programmers. Marketing and management need to take their share of responsibility for making websites work.

Fortunately, there are now reliable measurement tools available to help businesses ascertain the effectiveness or otherwise of their website.

Forrester Research in the US, for example, has conducted more than 375 website reviews since 2000, so they have a pretty good idea by now of what works on the Internet. The view from their angle isn’t pretty.

The reviews consist of examining websites across 25 different site characteristics and assigning a score of +2 to -2 for each element, which means a maximum possible score of +50.

But the average across those 375 reviews is -1.5, a score that Forrester analyst Bruce Temkin describes as “pitiful”. The highest score was +26 and the lowest was -30, with 60% averaging less than zero and 25% averaging less than -8. “What do these dismal grades mean lost sales and failed self-service as frustrated users hit usability roadblocks,” says Temkin.

Forrester found that retailers are doing best (average +3.1) and telecommunication companies the worst (average -5.6), with auto and consumer goods sites only slightly in front of them.

In a recurrent theme for user design studies, the most common problem identified from these reviews is poor search, with 78% of firms not providing adequate search results.

Forrester also applied those 25 criteria to 20 mainstream sites to produce a report called “The Best and Worst of Site Design 2003″. Scores for the automotive, media, retail and travel sites it reviewed ranged from Lands’ End at +30 down to the worst of the US car sites at -10.

A “passing grade” for all tests (+1) would result in a grade of at least +25. Eighteen of the 20 sites failed, with only (Lands’ End and L.L. Bean) scoring high enough. Even the best sites “had troubling flaws”, according to Forrester, particularly in the areas of search (again) and accessibility. “Basic errors reveal the immature state of web design,” the report concluded.

Now what do we do?

Thankfully, both Forrester reports offered solutions, not just criticism. Forrester analyst Harley Manning recommended companies focus on four key areas:

• Context: Get information and tools users need on the pages where they need them.
• Navigation: Menus and links should get users to content and function as quickly and transparently as possible.
• Product focus: Manning writes, “White space on Web pages is like silence on the radio - a little goes a long way. Fill pages with what users want: easily readable product descriptions, relevant images, and useful tools.”
• Easy help: Integrate support into key pages and bring help to users instead of making them go look for it.

In a follow-up report to the design study, Manning said there are a series of questions every executive dealing with a business website should ask about site design:

• What are the business goals for this design?
• Who are the target users?
• Where is the content and function users need to complete their goals?
• Are we speaking the users’ language?
• Can users get to essential content in three steps or less?
• Can users read this type at high resolution without squinting?
• Have you looked for best-of-breed solutions in other websites (including your competitors?)
• Can you demonstrate good search results for typical user queries?
• Have you planned to build in and test accessibility?

His definition of successful design is simple. “Designs succeed when they make or save money for the company. Period.”