Top Quality – Consumer focused websites

Recently I wrote about my poor experiences in researching a lawn mower and the hurdles I came across in finding out the basic information I needed to make an informed choice. The manufacturer sites were all flawed in one fashion or another, with the summation of faults being a mix of poor execution or just plain devoid of any semblance of usability or consistency in the areas of:

• information presentation
• content quality including  clarity of writing, accuracy and relevence
• image use
• corporate identity & brand mark execution
• construction artifacts such as font use, breadcrumbs, navigation features & highlights

The end result is that I found the usability and the ability to perform specific tasks was found wanting in many of the sites. As a consequence a poor User Experience was the hallmark of my interaction, which led to frustration  in finding the information I was looking for. Not good for the brands in question, particularly if I was looking for a lawn mower to be reliable and “just work” I could, like many users, be tainted by my online experience with the brand in question. Really.

So, with that in mind, what do I think are good websites which portray products and consumer driven information well? I’ve chosen the below 3 for entirely different reasons. Each is markedly different in their information presentaion, layout and fucntionality, however at the heart, each IMHO meets its target audience really nicely.

Rushfaster Australia http://www.rushfaster.com.au
An online based retailer specialising in showcasing bags. The areas which stand out head and shoulders above most sites are:

Photography: simply put, it is stunning. Well shot, clear, and taken in context as to how you would want to investigate a bag, short of being there touching it yourself. There is no doubt in my mind that these guys spend big money getting professional photo shoots of the products done, as in many cases they are a cut above the bag manufacturers site itself.In
Image Size: little irritates me more than a product site with small, useless images. Rushfaster has got it right – good image size, small file size, crystal clear.
Search: using key traits of what you look for – size, type, style, brand, price – it just works. I also particularly like the calculator which works out if your laptop will fit into the bag you are looking at and offer alternatives if it doesn’t.
Shopping Cart/Checkout: easy to use, offers cross links of other product, easy to signup. Can exit and return back in at any stage.
Information Design: layout is clear, logical, comprehensive, consistant and well written, cross linked promotions and similar items are presented

Citizen Watch Australia http://www.citizenwatches.com.au
Noted by a work colleague who was searching for a watch for his girlfriends birthday. Whilst you can’t actually purchase online from this site, it is a good showcase of the products and presents a useful reference point for you to visit a store. On that, slightly annoying that such a nice website is totally let down by this one area – no list of dealers to purchase from.

Watch Search: selector with its persistant right hand side navigation bar is absolutely fantastic in its functionality and speed with which it whittles down literally hundreds of models.
Fat Footer: I’m a professed fan of the big fat footer which sits at the bottom of pages with all the ‘floating’ navigation items you are likely to want whilst browsing.
Information Design: Again, like Rushfaster, lots of consistantly arranged information and groupings of features.
Images: Watches are very personal items – the quality photography here illustrates each watch in fine detail, giving a sense of the product.

Ping Golf http://www.pinggolf.com
Now, I don’t play golf as such (yet) but know alot of people that do and the underlying thread of all these people is that when they are spending their money on new clubs, drivers and bags/buggys, they do an immense ammount of research. As a consequence, their baseline understanding is somewhat higher than your average consumer. But. The big thing about the Ping website which I noticed is that if you were a first time researcher or visitor, this would quickly become the default standard by which you rate all the other big brands like King Cobra, Calloway, Titlelist, Taylor Made, Wilson and so forth. The site really takes you on a journey in presenting information and illustrative examples which are relevent, supportive and most of all, don’t leave you lost as you make your way through the site. Really good. A nice touch is the Ping Golf Club owner letters being read out by the staff, who albeit from their biased point of view, extol the virtues of the products and make you see how everybody else is using them.

I just wanted to buy a lawn mower….

Recently I had to bow to the inevitable and admit I needed to buy myself a lawnmower. Not withstanding the change from being a bar hopping, inner city urban sort of guy, to the fact that I was now a renovating, suburban, family man with responsibilities like a backyard of knee high grass, I succumbed and started to look around for why it was lawn mowers at my local ranged from $80 to well north of $1500. What on earth? I’m only trying to cut grass and maintain civil relations with my neighbours of not being labeled “that house.”

So, thinking that looking for a product, I’d have a similar view to any other person I set out to look for the following, in no particular order:

• Specifications
• Recommended Retail Price
• Features,  Benefits and Unique Selling Point
• Where to buy – Dealer Locations

With the above goals and objectives, I proceeded to visit a bunch of different lawn mower manufacturer sites from a purely task oriented position. I had specific objectives and a set amount of time to achieve these in ie. I didn’t want to waste too much time looking. Underlying this, I think, like most people I was shopping on the following principles:

• Budget – something to fit within the specified budget.
• Intended purpose/requirement – something that addresses requirement.
• Value add – features and benefits which would justify an increase in my allotted budget.

Considering it was a lawn mower, aesthetics, usability and its desirability – hey, it IS a lawnmower – play slightly lower in the requirements. Translating this to the complex world of mowing my back yard,  I also didn’t want to be on a one way street of having to shell out lots of money for ongoing repairs and maintenance – I would happily pay extra for reliability, sturdy construction and execution of intended function. My starting budget was $500 – as good a place as any to start – with which I would use as a yard stick to rate and judge the good/bad of the machines.

So what were the good and bad with the websites I encountered?

Toro Australia http://www.toro.com.au/
Home page – nice. It is reasonably well laid out, and broken down clearly by activity/location areas into Home, Golf Course, Contractor, Stadium and Agriculture. Pretty simplistic and a nice start. Selecting “Home”, and then in turn selecting, “Walk Power Mowers”,  the page was really, really long. It waxed lyrical about the features and benefits, having little photos next to each, to reinforce that position.  The photos were bordering on too small, almost pointless. The list of models was distinguished by way of Military style call sign model designations and limited to the blade diameter and the engine model type. No Prices. No pictures of product, no descriptions on why you would go for one model verses the other…. Worst of all, and this is bad considering I have a 24″ widescreen at work, the font was rendered in tiny 6 point . The dealer locator required a postcode and/or town – worked well, although again the screen real estate could have been utilised in a better fashion. Thumbs up to the persistent primary navigation along the top of the site all the time. 6/10 for overall design and intended function but bumps downwards  for that ridiculous font size and poorly executed sub sections. 4/10.

John Deere Australia http://www.deere.com/en_AU
Even before going to this site, I knew it was going to be expensive as the Green & Gold livery of the John Deere gear is considered the pinnacle of agricultural equipment as I am reliably informed by my farm running in laws. Similarly set up to the Toro site, it breaks down equipment by activity on the home page by way of smallish images buried within a poorly executed flash navigation supported by a very hard to read vertical  labeling. A nice touch was  the presentation of a Products and Equipment section allowing  step by step navigation to the allotted equipment areas. Content structure in the actual product pages is inconsistent, some models have an image, some  have their specs detailed in bullet points (with ambiguous headings) and some of them opt for tabulated data. No prices. Printer friendly button, is initially useful for older browsers although superfluous in light of a well designed page in the first place.  Overall, penalised heavily for the inconsistent information presentation across grouped products. Also, not so cool is the lack of a com.au domain – it is a sub domain on the global site, making it difficult to market for in the region from a memorable URL point of view. 5/10.

Honda Australia http://www.honda.com.au
This Japanese manufacturing giant’s home page is the direction for a network navigation, directing you to Automotive, Marine, Motorbike, Personal Watercraft & Power Equipment. Visually, light years ahead in terms of  aesthetic design, a real credit to the design agency and the strong brand which Honda has worldwide, but dig a bit further from a navigation point of view and the site becomes extraordinarily frustrating. You can find Lawn mowers easily enough, but you have to go through each model one by one and to get back to the overview, you have to hit the browser back button – there isn’t a breadcrumb in sight! Introduction, features & specifications are all uniformly well laid out and image quality is good. The only gripe, aside from the missing breadcrumb, is the dealer locator, which works fine but launches into a totally differently branded site, which is appeasing to the network navigation demons – a jar on the user experience. Again, you are forced to hit the back button to return back to the site. 8/10.

Masport http://www.masport.com.au/
Big site. Lots of lawn mowers. Too many, in fact with little to distinguish them until you get into the detail. The landing page has good images of the product, broken up into its product range, but there is no differentiation between the ranges aside from a technical spec overview, which to novice lawn mower hunter me, meant…. not much at all. Inoffensive design (just) is simple and easy to use. Navigation is persistent. Product pages are pretty good, if somewhat plain. Picture is okay size, information is consistent and informative. No price, leading to a lack of hierarchy amongst the machines. Dealer locator is a pain in the neck to use, forcing you to wade through a clumsy inelegant super long list and worse unless you click the relevant suburb, you can’t determine what sort of dealer it is ie. President Series Only, MSV Series Only or both etc.  6/10.

Victa http://www.victa.com.au/
Similar aesthetic and navigation standards to the Masport website – minimal. 2 main groups – Domestic & Professional, sorts out the inquiry direction. You get to the landing page and you are hit with 20+ different mowers and absolutely no way to determine hierarchy or features between any of them as they all look similar. Pictures are good. No prices. Dealer locator is by far and away the best. Select a state and bang, they are all shown up for you to browse through. 7/10.

So, overall, not a great rap for the lawn mower world – all sites had failings, some of them fatal from a usability point of view, others poorly representative of the brand.  I waded through and read for an hour or so and ended up going down to the local lawn mower shop and had a chat to the experts,  and followed up with a few friends and colleagues who had already ventured down this path. 2 things jumped out at me in every conversation I had – Get an Alloy Deck & stick with either Honda or Briggs & Stratton engine. Nothing else. The ironic thing after all this toil and endeavour in which I was about to lay down the hard earned cash, is that we got given a lawn mower as a Christmas present. Got a Masport 19″ with a Briggs & Stratton 4 Stroke Engine which has been great.

Top Gear as portrayed by XaliaS & SIR Community

Facebook & the Implications of Privacy

A number of articles published in today’s ‘The Age’ online have equally disturbed and intrigued me on a number of levels.

The first was the identification of the arsonist in the Victorian Bush Fires in the article ‘Vigilantes publish alleged arsonist’s image online‘ , and the subsequent Flash speed with which their identify has been disclosed on Facebook, now numbering some 150+ million active users.  Some of the commentary as reported in the above article, is disturbing in its explicit anger and intent, all the more so, because what was once a ‘closed garden‘ environment has now become public by virtue of the introduction of ‘Pages’, ‘Groups’ & ‘Causes’. This speaks volumes about the ‘power of the people’ and the strength such social networks have on influencing real life from its virtual footprint. I logged in this evening and found no less than 10 groups devoted to this topic.

The second aspect that caught my attention is the comments of the presiding judge who quashed suppression of the alleged person’s identify in ‘Churchill arson accused fails to face court‘

“Any prison system has its jungle drums…how is the suppression going to protect the anonymity,” Magistrate Klestadt said. He said murderers and pedophiles appeared in court every day and their names were not suppressed.

The above comment shows the judges limited understanding and social context with which Facebook’s influence extends too. Putting aside the guilt or innocence of the alleged for a moment, and assessing in an entirely dispassionate light, the inherant problem with this statement by the judge is that, even with television and radio coverage, such types within our society are not likely to face the sheer volume of recrimination and potential vigilante action that is brewing on Facebook’s Wall’s, News Feeds’ and Status Updates. What was once the realm of small town gossip, maybe a phone call, at worst, televised coverage has now breached the divide of a worldwide, instantaneous communication network where the information source is vetted by any reasonable persons measure – the information source is one you trust – your network of friends. By its very nature of being a ‘closed garden’ network, Facebook itself is inadvertently endorsing the publication of such activities. Where communications over television, radio or in print would fade as the natural path of time charts its course, the Facebook group and subsequent alerting of your friends and acquaintances of your wall will potentially last for weeks, if not months.

The 3rd area which sounded alarm bells was the following as quoted in ‘Churchill arson accused fails to face court‘

Dr Matthew Rimmer, senior lecturer in law at the Australian National University, said Facebook is in much the same position as any other media organisation. “Much like a newspaper, Facebook needs to be careful what it publishes because it’s not just the author who is liable. Sometimes the publisher is liable ,” he said.

Here is a learned academic passing comment that Facebook is a media organisation like a newspaper. This troubles me greatly in that Facebook does little to police nor vet the activities of its users from a day to day personal perspective. Newspapers on the other hand vet everything that goes to print, and operate in much this similar fashion when moderating their own blogs and article comment feeds. Facebook is different as the ‘closed garden’ premise is that you only invite your friends to be a part of your network, and as a consequence, you are subsequently responsible for your actions and activities on your wall. I liken Facebook to be like a Hotel – you hire the room, once you have the keys, what you do with the room for the period of your stay is up to you, so long as you abide by the basic ground rules of don’t trash the place, pay for the mini bar and be civil to other guests whilst enjoying your stay. The very appeal of such networks is you can control who sees what, you get presented information that your friends have already vetted and endorsed and your privacy is maintained.

Overall, Facebook’s principle of offering a ‘closed garden’ is widely acclaimed and endorsed. Their creation of ‘Beacon‘ to data mine and ad serve your preferences, offering targeted advertising by way of user preference profiles and in recent years Facebook ‘Pages’, ‘Groups’ and ‘Causes’ all started life as different ways for the business to make money. However what is going to challenge their supremacy and high patronised usage is Privacy. Privacy and the implications of Facebook’s responsibilities as a publisher are only going to become more and more challenging as time goes on, as they will potentially be held responsible for the activities of its vast sea of users, generating millions of words, actions and images each day.

Information Architecture

I had reason recently to discuss the concept of Information Architecture with a client. In its broad context, as it applies to web, It was readily apparent that this client’s world view, the definition that they pursued was limited to the site navigation and page layout in context of a classic sitemap. Whilst I can understand that most IA’s are referred back to a site map diagram  – a trap of the industry -  it has occured to me that the definition as interpreted by my esteemed work colleagues who rank developers, project managers, digital strategists and designers (conceptual) is in an entirely different area of focus and emphasis. However, we’re often left with clients that need to understand just what in the world we are talking about. So where is the disconnect?

As is always the case when in doubt, I fall back on the Trusted Wikipedia definition of Information Architecture as a starting point:

“Information architecture (IA) is the art of expressing a model or concept of information used in activities that require explicit details of complex systems. Among these activities are library systems, Content Management Systems, web development, user interactions, database development, programming, technical writing, enterprise architecture, and critical system software design. Information architecture has somewhat different meanings in these different branches of IS or IT architecture. Most definitions have common qualities: a structural design of shared environments, methods of organizing and labeling websites, intranets, and online communities, and ways of bringing the principles of design and architecture to the digital landscape.”

Quite a formal definition that needs bearing in mind if we are to dessiminate the underlying definition in context of the Web world.

When building a website lots of people, including both clients and practitioners make the mistake thinking that it’s easy. It’s not. A well built website considers factors that are the summation of different areas of endeavour for the business or organisation in question. Everyone has a vested interest to ensure that this pesky website thing works – the sales force, corporate comms, IT & IS, HR, executive, products group etc. Ultimately, they are there to support the activities in communicating to the site’s end users, both actual and intended and the intended function of the site in turn supports the business goals being focussed upon.

What is overlooked on a regular basis by both clients and so called ‘expert’ practitioners is the need for us to have an understanding of those other audiences on the business side who have a vested interest as well as the same understanding as it relates to the user side. The often subscribed to view is that managing or eliciting such involvement from other stakeholders internally can uneccesarily stymie the progress of the project. And in contrast, assessing the audience both intended and actual is often just ‘too big a task’ by most peoples standards. Involvement in such activity extends to the IA and how it impacts on the User Experience (UX).  IA by our own industries definition is not just the site structure from a page relationship point of view, however the problem is that we often don’t communicate this terribly well to our clients, who are more focussed on the commercial outcome of  what the end result will be. And rightly so, as they are the ones ‘paying’ us to deliver results. Succinctly, IA involves not only the navigation and the hierarchical arrangement of the pages, but also encompasses the below aspects.

1. Who is the audience? Are they going to be myopically challenged (as mentioned below) or have the attention span of a butterfly
2. Content Layout – Priority and scaling of content in relation to context and intended purpose. The concept of a great tract of text 750 words long doesn’t faze most people – until I point out ‘Would you read that?’ Both clients and practitioners are guilty of not thinking in this area nor offering advice and alternatives. How to solve this? Heading 1, followed by heading 2 byline, followed by 30 word summary, followed by introduction paragraph, use of tabulated data to present data (not to break up data), dot points and cross referencing. If you can’t deal with all that in 250 – 300 words, breakout the massive slab into a PDF Whitepaper, with that as a specific topic.
3. Images – Either overused (way to large), underused (way to small) or cliched, out of context. How many product sites have I gone too where the images are tiny? Too many.
4. Use a breadcrumb! Highly underated. This trail and visual cue of where you are in the site gives relevence to the hierachical order of information.
5. Font Size – Again highly underated. How many sites have I found where the audience is 40+ male white collar workers…. who are probably wearing glasses. Have at the least a font size button which can scale the site up and down.
6. Information Hierarchy – specifications, instructional guides, price lists, high level description, sizing etc
7. Print version – like it or not, people still print pages. It’s gotta fit on the A4/Foolscap sheet and is useless if it gets cropped. Savvy website owners will also setup their print variants to have pre-formatted pages with company logo, contact information, the page location within the site, print date and possible cross linked information.

Good User Experience yields ease of access and allows people to fall into the natural rhythm of finding the information they are looking for and if it is done correctly, it is self feeding in that it yields data back giving you insights into your web audience. The key things is that good IA starts at the design stage and should be encompassed in the Wireframes and the Site layout. Excellent IA is the result of good consultant activity at the Pre-Sales / Client Definition / Discovery stage of the project and should take into account a site visit whereby you can ‘soak up’ the atmosphere of the client in question.

All the above needs to be determined before a good IA can be setup and they all impact on the overall User Experience of how site visitors will interact with your site. The current line of thought extends to the notion that interactivity with your site is a reflection of how a client interacts with your brand. Brand as a touch point is every single interactivity they have with your organisation – products, service, phone call centre, printed material, customer interaction, your staff, your sales force, the words being portayed in popular media…. and your website.

A tribute to our firefighting men and women

This week has been a tough one for country & regional Victoria. Bushfires (Wildfires for you US folk) have devastated the state, indiscriminantly destroying land, life and hope in their path. They are still raging albeit amongst mild weather, with the official death toll halted until formal identification of the bodies can be carried out by specialist teams being bought in from Interstate and as far afield as Indonesia and the USA. Throughout this suffering, the political recriminations and finger pointing are starting to emerge, with Germaine Greer passing comment overnight in London.

Superlatives abound – number of lives lost: 181+, intensity of the heat which was the prelude: Melbourne 7/2/09 46.8 degrees Celsius/118 degrees Fahrenheit and the sheer volume of goodwill by way of donations from corporate australia and the general public exceeding $60 million AUD to date.

However, at the core of this tragedy with loved ones lost and the memories of what was possible, the valiant courage and tireless efforts of those people in our community who appoint themselves to join the CFA: Country Fire Authority rate a special mention.

A particularly poignant & concise tribute of the CFA’s actions and as reported in today’s The Age.

A tribute to our firefighting men and women – David Marr
http://www.theage.com.au/national/a-tribute-to-our-firefighting-men-and-women-20090212-866s.html
February 13, 2009 – 12:04PM

THEY don’t know how long they’ll be around.
They’re not clear where they’ll be tomorrow.
They’ve put other lives on hold.
They’re here to work.
Ask them why they do this and they say it’s what you do if you live in the bush.
Long lines of fire trucks bring them down from the hills at the end of each shift to the staging area in Whittlesea.
Like regiments in a small war, the trucks carry the names of the communities that have turned out to help: Talbot, Riddells Creek, Kalkallo 2, Hastings, Woodend, Newstead, Wendouree.
The firefighters’ gear is a complete disguise. Is this a lawyer, a nurse or a plumber in yellow clobber?
Right now it doesn’t matter a damn.
This is a bunch of dirty, tired, cheerful and hungry people taking a break from the horrors up in the hills.
They’re very hungry.
The time between getting off the trucks and into a steak is short.
Here’s a sign of the times.
Not only in Whittlesea but up at Yea, there are expresso machines and volunteer baristas.
Before setting out for the fires or after a hard day backburning in the hills, a “firey’’ can know a good flat white is at hand.
And it’s free. Of course, it’s all free.
The mood is subdued.
They smoke and talk quietly.
The television is blaring.
The firefighters need the news.
Those in the thick of it are the last to know what’s happening.
They aren’t in a rush to leave.
After a few hours sleep they’ll be going out again and this will continue until the fires are no danger.
That moment isn’t in sight.