Author Archive for Nicole Wallens

Why Sun.com (still) aces the search best practice category

By Nicole Wallens · Comments (0)
Sunday, January 18th, 2009

I’m always getting questions about which site has the best search capabilities in the IT industry.  For my money, the answer is Sun.com. Here’s why.

Sun's redesigned search pages still deliver an industry best practice. Detailed content category, type, format and language filters make navigating results a snap

Sun's redesigned search pages still deliver an industry best practice. Detailed content category, type, format and language filters make navigating results a snap

Sun.com’s search design is very effective for delivering mountains of organized and logical search results because it sorts and presents information  based on common categories as well as resource type or affiliation.  Each category-specific page clearly indicates the number of results found within the category — and each list opens to display additional subcategories.

The “Search Help” link leads to useful, instructive information that is designed to help visitors construct a search that will yield the most relevant results. This page also includes several search hints designed to assist visitors in entering the most accurate key words or phrases that will yield the results they require.

Best of all, Sun.com offers an advanced site search feature under the “More Options” link that provides users with some truly unique capabilities. Users can specify that returned pages meet specific file format criteria (.PDF, XML, Text, HTML), and can also specify content written in up to 13 different languages.

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Categories : Search
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Sun.com plays catch-up by launching a new home page

By Nicole Wallens · Comments (0)
Thursday, November 20th, 2008

If you’ve visited Sun.com in the last week or so there’s no doubt that you noticed a brand new home page that is a dramatic departure from the previous iteration. From a visual perspective, the most striking changes are the full use of bold color that gives the page more weight & substance (which translates to sophistication in the minds of visitors), and a re-architected template that — although not radically different from the previous construct — delivers a wealth of links in a much more efficient manner.

Striking changes include the bold use of color and a more efficient design

Striking changes include the bold use of color, more balanced navigation, and a more efficient design

Beyond these immediately eye-catching alterations are an assortment of more subtle modifications that achieve a couple of objectives. First, navigational options are more evenly distributed, which balances home page content. Second, popular features, including downloads & free trials, are more prominently positioned making them particularly obvious & accessible to visitors.

Visual changes aside, the most significant modifications to the Sun.com home page lie in the reorganization of existing links — and addition of new links — that allow visitors to enter the site based on affiliation or objective. Admittedly, the previous home page provided access to resources via a smattering of audience-specific links and often encouraged visitors to Read More→

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Categories : Design
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Reseller sites give Dell.com a run for its (e-selling) money

By Nicole Wallens · Comments (0)
Saturday, May 17th, 2008

Ever since we made the decision to add reseller sites to our eBusiness Index roster for 2008, I’ve been curious to see how they would perform against some of the IT industry’s selling powerhouses, including HP.com, Dell.com, and IBM.com. I wasn’t curious about their competitive performance, per se. Reseller sites are significantly smaller than their enterprise-class counterparts, even though they sell many of the same products. That automatically means their overall rankings will be lower. What I was curious about is how well these reseller sites would stack up based on their usability.

Insight.com and Newegg.com both receive scores that place them in a league with IT industry leaders -- and well ahead of one of their major partners -- HP.com

Insight.com and Newegg.com both receive scores that place them in a league with IT industry leaders — and well ahead of one of their major partners — HP.

When I rolled up the first quarter 2008 usability numbers this week, a couple of interesting facts jumped out. First, Newegg.com’s product marketing score is nearly 71%, which puts it on par with the eBusiness Index average (71.38%) — and places it in close proximity to enterprise systems heavyweights in the effectiveness rankings. Second, and more important, all three reseller sites — Newegg.com, CDW.com, and Insight.com — earn e-selling-related usability scores that are well above the eBusiness Index average, and actually rival those of the ultimate online channel — Dell.com.

Admittedly, these are two bright spots in an otherwise checkered usability landscape for these companies.  Read More→

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Categories : eSelling
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The importance of being well rounded

By Nicole Wallens · Comments (2)
Tuesday, January 29th, 2008

Ever since we started this happy little band back in ’96, we’ve proposed that one of the hallmarks of a best practices Website is a well rounded volume of content, tools, and resources that are delivered in a manner that allows visitors to easily achieve stated tasks & goals. Through the years, we’ve noted time and again that Web properties like HP.com & IBM.com rise to the top of the competitive eBusiness Index rankings because they provide visitors with copious quantities of fairly evenly distributed assets & data. Not surprisingly, we’ve also reported that sites like Alcatel-Lucent.com, Lenovo.com, and EDS.com (just to name a few) fall to the bottom of the rankings because they deliver smaller, less balanced content catalogs.

What did strike me,  is just how disproportionately these three laggers supply content across their sites—and the fact that the zones in the most trouble are the ones that present information critical to the company’s core business model or market strategy

Over time, we’ve illustrated this point in a variety of ways, including graphs that show relative performance by category; trendlines that demonstrate competitive strengths & weaknesses; charts that identify content density; and tables that list overall scores. This past year, however, we’ve been using a handy little analysis tool called star charts (a.k.a. spider graphs) that allow us to look at evaluation data in a whole slew of new ways, including a view that demonstrates how well rounded a site’s content portfolio really is.

So, when it came time to roll up the fourth quarter 2007 siteIQ eBusiness Index evaluation numbers, I thought it might be interesting to use a star chart that maps competitive performance by category to illustrate just how balanced sites like HP.com & IBM.com really are. Then I decided to juxtapose their content allocation against some of the less stellar performers on the Index including Alcatel-Lucent.com, Lenovo.com, and EDS.com.

Now, I’ve got to tell you that I wasn’t totally surprised at what I saw when I finished entering the data and looked at the chart. Read More→

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Categories : Design, Website Rankings
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It’s time to look at how consumers purchase computer hardware through a different lens

By Nicole Wallens · Comments (1)
Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008

At some point during the fourth quarter, siteIQ Practice Leaders & Senior Analysts sit down to review the companies included on the eBusiness Index, and discuss whether the Websites we track  represent best-in-class behaviors within each industry segment. Usually, after some debate about each site’s merits & drawbacks, and the company’s industry standing, we come to a group decision regarding which sites to keep—and which ones to kill from the list.

I did something I never thought I’d do. I lobbied that we retire my pet personal systems sites from the eBusiness Index and replace them with three reseller Web properties including CDW.com, Insight.com, and Newegg.com

Not surprisingly, these discussions are usually quite lively, as Practice Leaders lobby for certain sites to be included for review, and often, for entire industry segments to be added to the Index roster. This was certainly the case when Kenna & I petitioned for the Business Software & Personal Systems segments to be added to the eBusiness Index back in 2005, so I was happy that these industries finally earned full-time Index status in the third quarter 2007.

Then, a funny thing happened in the fourth quarter. Read More→

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Categories : POV (point of view), Website Rankings
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