Dell: Close but no cigar

First, let’s consider Dell’s app (which runs on both iPhone and iPad), which delivers the broadest range of capabilities. The ability to browse and buy Dell products. Check orders. View classic support content and (drum roll please) access a nice assortment of support videos.

Given all of these goodies, you’d think the Dell mobile app would be a slam dunk. You’d be wrong.  The culprit? A design and interface that is, well, embarrassing.  I’m thinking a skunk works run amok. Clunky, clumsy, clueless, and certainly not up to Dell’s online brand.

Newegg does it better

If a great design and savvy interface are your cup of tea, Newegg’s app sets the standards. Great design. Crisp images. Perfect look and feel. Add easy to use—and this app hits all of the marks. Product details, reviews, return policies, and fast paths to similar products. The shopping cart and check out processes are works of art.

On the other hand, if you want mobile support, you’re out of luck. Newegg’s app is for browsing and buying. If your product is broken, you’ll have to go somewhere else.

Cisco gets it — again

Since mobile support is part of Dell’s iPad app DNA, I decided to see what’s up on the iPad support front. Cisco’s iPad support app (launched last March) is a great example of this new genre. Like Newegg, Cisco.com read the memo on the importance of a crisp design and great interface—and the app’s content architecture and features are also first rate. If developing an iPad support app is on your dance card, this should be at the top of your “inspiration” list.

So there you have it. Dell’s iPad app covers most of the bases, and Newegg and Cisco end up hitting all of the home runs.

I’m putting the final touches on a new case study which will hit the Library this week. If you are a subscriber, look for an alert in your email. If you aren’t a member of the family, you can learn more about the Case Studies Library here.

This got me thinking about what makes up a best practice. Here’s my take:

Best practices don’t accidentally happen. They are the reward gained from identifying a goal, developing or implementing the best tools, behaviors, or ideas that achieve that goal, and executing them.

Identifying the goal is important. It is the single spark that causes improvement to happen. But a goal must be changed based on resources and circumstances. Flexibility sustains momentum.

The tools and behaviors implemented don’t have to be revolutionary. They don’t even need to be new. But they must achieve the goal in the most efficient and graceful way possible. Innovation is extra credit.

But execution is the one absolute requirement. Ideas that aren’t executed don’t exist. It doesn’t matter if the final product is borne from inspiration or imitation. What matters is that it makes something better than it was. It moves the ball down the field. It achieves the goal.

Overall: IBM Global Services
Usability & Effectiveness: IBM Global Services
Content, Features & Capabilities: Accenture.com

The ripples of IBM.com’s latest site redesign reached the professional services segment this year and has rocked Accenture.com’s first place ranking. The question now is whether or not the tide will turn in 2012. Here’s the rundown from first place to last:

1. 2011 was a banner year for IBM Global Services. The impressive makeover of its parent site, IBM.com, helped it achieve the number one position in overall performance, while hanging on to the top spot in usability. All of IBM.com’s sites are definitely ones to watch in 2012—and IBM Global Services is no exception.
2. If a Website had a heart and a mind, then Accenture.com’s is in all the right places. Unfortunately, it was not enough to hold onto first place on the professional services Index. It did, however, prove itself to be the largest professional services site reviewed. With a few improvements in site usability Accenture.com could easily steal back the gold statue from IBM Global Services. Only time will tell.
3. Deloitte.com is the size of a newt in an industry segment where Websites are the size of a newt. Now that’s small. Combine this site’s small stature with a less than stellar usability performance and you get a solid third place ranking–and a site that doesn’t benefit the firm it represents.

There’s plenty more rankings & ratings – and our take on the evaluation results – in our new Professional Services Report.  Subscribers can pick up a copy in the Library. If you aren’t a subscriber you can learn more here…..

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Overall: Symantec.com
Usability & Effectiveness: Symantec.com
Content, Features & Capabilities: Microsoft.com

Each business software site’s redesign over the past year has caused content and features to shrink on a huge scale. But did these diets help the sites’ usability scores? At least one Website should think so.  Here’s the rundown from first place to last:

1. Any Web team that focuses on site usability should put Symantec.com at the top of its watch list. This site’s usability ranking not only debuted at number 2 on the siteIQ Enterprise Software Index, but held its number 1 position in usability while stealing first place in overall performance from Microsoft.com in the siteIQ Business Software Index. Not bad for a year’s work.
2. Microsoft.com’s site reductions during its rolling redesign took a toll on its performance this year. It is still the ten-ton gorilla in the business software segment, but its third place usability ranking is pure monkey business.
3. Adobe.com’s story is similar to Microsoft.com’s. It is the smallest of the business software sites reviewed—and it got smaller over the course of the year. But unlike Microsoft.com, Adobe.com brings in relatively admirable usability scores. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to reach any of the brass rings in 2011.

There’s plenty more rankings & ratings – and our take on the evaluation results – in our new Business Software Report.  Subscribers can pick up a copy in the Library. If you aren’t a subscriber you can learn more here…..

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So much for conventional wisdom.

For the most part, I’d rather have a root canal than use most support Websites.

Search for information and you end up with a list of a bazillion documents with truncated descriptions that read like Sanskrit.

Want to take a different path? Try ferreting your product out of a laundry list of every product the company ever made.

Or try the “follow our logical links” scenario—where you end up drilling to China.

At the end of all of this wonderfulness is the real insult. Support content that either requires an engineering degree to understand—or a wad of general purpose instructions that dance around the problem and miss the issue by a country mile.

Finally, don’t get me started about most site’s support program content. (You know, the stuff that explains why you have to pay to play.)  First, you can’t find it. When you do, it’s packed with so many superlatives you need a dictionary to figure it out.

Honestly, you’d think support teams would get it after doodling on the Web for 16 years.

Drum Roll, Please

Given my opinion of support on the Web, I was surprised how much the 2011 support evaluations reflected my opinions of these support sites. Most of the sites we evaluated deliver half of the content, features & capabilities deployed on best-in-class support sites. With the exception of four sites—Cisco.com, Symantec.com, IBM.com and the IBM Software Group site—every site’s usability misses the Good Practice mark.

I’d probably throw a bone to Dell.com, EMC.com, and Microsoft.com for coming close—but the rest are simply not up to snuff.

I’ve just finished putting the finishing touches on our new 2011 online support rankings and ratings report which published today. Here’s some of the more interesting things in this new report.

IBM, Dell and HP have all the goodies

IBM.com’s, Dell.com’s and HP.com’s monster-size support sites handed them the top rankings this year. If you want to create a world-class support size packed with every bell and whistle, you don’t have to look much further than here. Among the players, Dell.com is the biggest, but IBM.com puts its goodies together to better effect (its usability ranks third; Dell.com ranks fifth).

This brings me to the real tail that wags the dog.

Cisco.com proves an important point

When usability is the issue, we’ve always said that small can be mighty—and Cisco.com proves the point. Cisco.com’s support site took first place usability honors—which is a testament to all of the hard work we’ve seen on the site this year. If you are a siteIntelligence Case Studies Library subscriber, you can see Cisco.com’s best-in-class innovations here: https://siteiq.centraldesktop.com/sirc/blog/1088332/view/bytag/cisco (Category: support, Tag: cisco). (Have your login info handy).

From a usability perspective, Cisco.com has the most complete roster of support information that is easy to find. To see why, take Cisco.com’s site search engine for a spin and pay attention to post search filtering capabilities. Then check out the support zone’s fly-out navigational panel. If you want to learn why these matter, check out Cisco.com’s best practice case studies here: https://siteiq.centraldesktop.com/sirc/blog/1088332/view/bytag/cisco. (You guessed it: subscription & login required.)

Finding support content on most sites is a "Where's Waldo?" moment. Only 5 sites hit the mark.

Not so fast. The winners should cancel their victory lap.

So where are the pleasant surprises? Put Brocade.com, EMC.com, and Symantec.com on that list.

• Brocade.com has the most complete & thorough support program information (a Best Practice) -– and does the best job of encouraging visitors to take the next step.
• EMC.com’s support program information is easier to find—and does the best job of providing program contact information.
• Symantec.com delivers the best support click streams, which generated the highest Good Practice rating for all of its hard work.

And what about the rest of the pack? You know, those other 13 support Websites on the evaluation list?  Let’s just say there was another interesting surprise.

Earth to enterprise: what are you thinking?

With the exception of IBM Software Group, enterprise software sites need to up their usability game. From my perspective, their rankings are downright embarrassing.

CA.com ranks 11^th, Oracle.com ranks 12^th and SAP.com brings up the back of the pack in 15^th place. The only support sites that are worse than these triplets are reseller sites (CDW.com, Insight.com and Newegg.com) –and they don’t provide much, if any, support on their sites. Yikes!

So how does IBM Software Group stay out of this industry ditch? IBM.com’s highly integrated support portal is the wind beneath its wings. To see why this portal delivers a bit of online support nirvana, check out our case study in the Library: https://siteiq.centraldesktop.com/sirc/blogentry/5334686/. (Yep, you’ll need that pesky login information).

Dell.com support is really a tale of two cities.

Finally, no analysis is complete without taking a look at the conventional wisdom corner; in this case the prevailing belief that Dell.com operates the biggest and best online support site. This may (or may not) be true behind the Dell Premier firewall—but it’s a mixed bag if you are on the public side of the equation.

When the numbers are rolled up, Dell.com’s support zone’s content, features & capabilities rank #1, but its usability slips into fifth place–right behind the IBM Software Group site. As important, it only ranks first in one out of ten usability categories (a Good Practice for support zone logic). Other than that, Dell.com persistently ranks in second and third place.

The bottom line

So there you have it. The roster of winners based on 138 things support sites should provide–plus ten ways they should help users achieve their objectives. For the top five, I send hardy congratulations. For the rest of the pack, roll up your sleeves. There’s lots of work ahead.

Overall: Cisco.com
Usability & Effectiveness: Cisco.com
Content, Features & Capabilities: Cisco.com

Site refreshes, redesigns, and company acquisitions. All were in play in the networking systems segment last year. Did these facelifts improve these site’s usability? Did HP’s acquisition of 3Com give the old ProCurve site a new lease on life? Here’s the rundown from first place to last:

1. It is no surprise that networking giant and usability muse Cisco.com swept the Index awards. The site has been undergoing an iterative refresh over the past year. What is surprising is how the slight changes improved Cisco.com’s performance enough to award them 12 first place rankings—just in usability alone. Congrats Cisco.com!
2. HP Networking’s inclusion on the siteIQ Index this year upset every site’s apple cart—and stole second place from Juniper.net. But did HP Networking really get second place all on its own? Let’s just say it is nice to be part of the HP.com family.
3. The site that took the greatest hit this year was Juniper.net. Despite a sweeping Website redesign (one well worth checking out), the site lost its second place position (in all major categories) and its changes failed to move its usability scores one whit. But it wasn’t all bad news for Juniper.net. Its work exposed Juniper.net as a major player in online communities—including a first place ranking for Corporate Blogs.
4. Brocade.com gets the sleeper of the year award for stealing second place in overall usability from Juniper.net. Like Juniper.net, Brocade.com has been making changes to its site too. The difference is that all its latest updates actually moved the usability ball down the field. But Brocade.com hardly has time to rest on its laurels if it is going to bump Juniper.net out of third place overall.

There’s plenty more rankings & ratings – and our take on the evaluation results – in our new Networking Systems Report. Subscribers can pick up a copy in the Library. If you aren’t a subscriber you can learn more here…..

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Overall: Oracle.com
Usability & Effectiveness: IBM Software Group
Content, Features & Capabilities: Oracle.com

With two companies performing complete site overhauls–and one nudging its site into place over the past year—rankings were bound to change in 2011. So which sites were the major movers and shakers over the past 12 months? Which ones are the sites to watch through 2012? Here’s the rundown from first place to last:

1. This year Oracle.com retained its title as the content “big foot” on the siteIQ eBusiness Index (1)—and this footprint worked to deliver it the first place ranking. On the other hand, a broader look at the enterprise software industry shows that Oracle.com doesn’t have any room to rest on its laurels. Now it has CA.com gunning to be an enterprise software Goliath and IBM Software is upping the usability bar. To compete in the future, Oracle.com needs to up its game.
2. Incremental change was the name of the game at CA.com. That’s not to say there were any major splashes or “ta da’s”. Just a series of re-launches and endless tweaking that ended up creating a noticeable transformation. On the other hand, one look at CA.com’s scores and rankings shows that change isn’t always a good thing. CA.com lost its #1 usability ranking (dropped to third)—and is the only site that registered a net decrease in its usability & effectiveness score.
3. IBM Software’s latest site redesign is part of IBM.com’s Centennial revamp that is trying to change all of the rules. Here, The IBM Software team’s hard work—and CA.com’s tumble—delivered it the first place usability & effectiveness ranking and the only Good Practice rating in the group. The site’s renovation also delivered more content & features—but the real story is the site’s impressive string of 13 “Good Practice” usability ratings. The fact that its online communities are now visible on the site didn’t hurt either.
4. We didn’t add Symantec.com to the enterprise software mix this year because it’s selling large, complex software solutions. We added it because the enterprise systems “big wigs” are continuing to move down market with SMB and SaaS solutions that rely on the kinds of marketing and eCommerce capabilities that have long been a Symantec.com forte. So how did Symantec.com fare when compared to its mega software brethren? On the one hand, there’s no doubt that Symantec’s content & features are the size of a newt (relatively speaking). On the other hand, Symantec.com proves that small can be mighty. It usability & effectiveness debuted at second place—which proves that it knows how to capitalize on every single asset.
5. In April the German giant SAP.com unveiled a ginormous make-over that is still a work in progress. But if early scores are any indication, this new site is likely to give other sites a run for their money. Within a month of launch, this partial implementation was already moving the site’s content and usability & effectiveness scoring needles in the right direction. It ranks fifth to be sure—but its strong showing tells us that SAP.com will be a serious competitor within the next 12 months.
6. SAS.com’s scores paint a picture of a site that is running hard to stay in place. Here, substantial corporate marketing-class additions and improved communities visibility delivered the largest increase in overall content, features & capabilities scores—but burning the content midnight oil didn’t move its usability & effectiveness scores one whit. It ends up in 6th place (that’s dead last) with a 50.96% score and two stars (below average).

There’s plenty more rankings & ratings – and our take on the evaluation results – in our new Enterprise Software Report.

(1) Note: Oracle.com’s hardware product areas (a.k.a. Sun Microsystems hardware & systems) were not reviewed for this industry segment.

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Kenna Dian: Don’t Bother

Intel.com’s latest redesign is like buying an exotic car. It is visually striking, can be fun to drive, and has more bells and whistles than other cars on the road. But going exotic has tradeoffs. Choosing to pass on getting the full options package can leave the driving experience far less exciting than advertised. In fact, it may even break down–always in inconvenient locations. And the unique controls and design that seems edgy and innovative in the beginning quickly become confusing and irritating.

I really want to buy Intel.com’s exotic new design. But in the end, I simply can’t afford the time, effort and resources I need to invest to make it work. Some of my biggest gripes are:

The product content is like a Chinese dinner. There’s a nice selection of information available, but it is difficult to find anything really substantial in a single location.

Too many things that make you go “huh?” This site presents links, link summaries, and even images, that make no sense, are meaningless, or–at best–make the visitor work to know what they’re for.

Content below the fold is often invisible. Design misfires can make the page appear to be only one screen load when in fact there is much more. Unfortunately, this invisible content is some of the most critical for visitors wanting to buy Intel’s products.

All Flash, no pan. One thing quickly becomes apparent while surfing this site. If you don’t have Adobe Flash Player you won’t just have a mediocre experience—you will be missing information.

Marty:  Don’t Bother (with a couple of moments of brilliance)

I hate to say this Kenna, but my vote is split on the new Intel.com Website. On the plus side, this new design does a great job of pushing the whole negative design, smart search, ubiquitous videos, and mega menu balls down the field. It also had more doodads than a gourmet kitchen. On other hand, it’s also the poster child for some design decisions that should send smart teams right back to the drawing board.

When all of these pros and cons were added up and weighted, I ended up on the “Danger Will Robinson” side of the ledger. Here’s three reasons why.

Intel.com joins HP.com at the forefront of a very tricky (and IMHO dangerous) design trend—flexible designs. These layouts adjust to different screen sizes and resolutions so Websites can adapt to a potpourri of different user devices and platforms. The laptop. The desktop. The tablet. The phone.  Instead of designing a Website for each platform—why not use a flexible design that can act as a “one-size-fits-all” solution? Well, one reason is that it doesn’t always work. [There's more on why in the complete review published in our Case Studies Library--see the link below].

The name of this game is Apple, and it plays by its own rules. Here, the problem lies in the fact that Intel.com’s cool new tools rely on Flash—which is a non-starter on Apple devices.  That means Intel.com is about 150 million devices short of a Happy Meal.

This site is harder to crack than Fort Knox.  Intel.com’s new home page is a pluperfect example of a new genre. Visual.  Edgy.  Spare. Out of the norm. Unfortunately, it also seems to operate under the premise that most visitors want to start their journey by searching for the content located inside the site. I don’t know about you, but conducting a “hail Mary” search without any road signs is my activity of last resort.  Sorry Intel. D-

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Other Stuff to do:

Learn about how IBM.com is changing up the rules in the Visions of IBM.com’s grand redesign emerge blog post.

Overall: IBM.com
Usability: IBM.com
Content, Features & Capabilities: HP.com

But the siteIQ eBusiness Index is always about more than just rankings, ratings, and numbers. So what’s the story about what happened over the past 12 months? Here’s the rundown from first place to last:

1. IBM.com lost sole ownership of its first place position–and with that some bragging rights. Although they added another “Best Practice” rating under their belt, they lost three “Good Practice” ratings due to HP.com’s massive site footprint—which only got larger over the past year. Nevertheless, IBM.com still holds its own—albeit by a margin that is half of what it used to be.
2. Believe it or not, HP.com has a lot to crow about. It garnered a first place ranking for Content, Features & Capabilities, making it the most robust enterprise systems site on the siteIQ Index. It also added another “Best Practice” rating in eCommerce, bringing its total up from two to three. However these accolades can’t hide a dismal ranking in site usability, which just happens to be what really counts this year. Just goes to show, just because your site is big doesn’t mean its usable.
3. Not surprisingly, Dell.com spent the last 12 months focused on core marketing and selling requirements: product marketing, online communities, call to action, and eCommerce. This has always been its tactical modus operandi. Overall improvements in corporate marketing areas are also evident—the most notable being a massive increase in its investor relations.
4. Oracle.com added site content and features across every area of the site—except support. Meanwhile usability scores stayed flat. However, the scoring trend shows that Oracle.com tends to do a more with less. In general, areas that had fewer content additions showed stronger usability scores than zones that went through major overhauls.
5. EMC.com’s story of the past year is largely one of treading water. With the exception of its tanking online support scores, all other areas received minor investments in content and features that resulted in minor upticks in its usability scores. Corporate and product marketing areas got the most attention. Corporate blogs made the biggest splash—from being a no-show in 2010 to a score of almost 60% in 2011.
6. In the past 12 months Intel.com introduced the barest glimmer of an eCommerce facility and corporate blogs area. These two additions alone are responsible for virtually all of Intel.com’s scoring increases over the past year. Most other categories registered less than 1% change in content or usability scoring. (1)

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(1) At the time of this post, Intel.com introduced a new Website that had not been launched before the siteIQ eBusiness Index Enterprise Systems evaluations. siteIQ Best Practice Case Studies detailing the Intel.com redesign launch will be available in the Best Practice Case Study Library.

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Recently Marty Gruhn and I put IBM.com’s new mega-menu under the microscope and the results were…well…less than stellar. But a couple accidental slips of my cursor exposed some other new designs and approaches that are well worth taking a spin around the IBM.com site.

Navigation first, content second. If you click on one of the artfully hidden “all” links in IBM.com’s mega-menu (i.e. “all solutions” or “all services”) you will land on a page that is so simply designed and elegant that you will think you landed on a different site. You didn’t. This is the highest of the high levels of the new IBM.com. Sophisticated design aside, what is most notable is how the page is focused solely on navigating to the rest of the site. Broad, big-bucket links take visitors to more specific information, while the content only sets the context.

Introducing the mini-menu. With the popularity of micro-site Website architectures on the rise, moving around the dot com sites is becoming a problem. Some micro-site teams don’t want the big bulky navigation panel across the top of their pages*, while others want to design something that fits their own artistic vision. Enter the mini-menu. This design zips up the highest level of the global navigation panel into a tidy drop-down menu. In IBM.com’s case, it is activated by moving the cursor over the logo—another stroke of genius.

So, do these couple of accolades mean we are changing our stance on IBM.com’s mega-menu? Nope. Today it still has the same usability problems it did then. But one bad apple doesn’t spoil the bunch.

In fact, I highly recommend taking the top 2 to 3 levels of this site for a serious ride. If you bounce around long enough, you can begin to catch glimpses of the new IBM.com emerging. And if they actually pull off what it looks like they are shooting for, the new IBM.com will be a work of art—and a site to follow.

*See SAP.com’s new site (and read our post about the latest launch), some areas of Cisco.com, and the granddaddy of mega-micro-sites, Microsoft.com.