The annual siteIQ eBusiness rankings just hit the airwaves. This year’s report is a whopper. 95 pages, 108 graphs – and our usual politically incorrect take on what it all means.

Here’s how some of the 2011 rankings shake out.

Overall Performance.  IBM.com and Cisco.com share the winner’s podium.

2011 was the year that IBM.com transformed itself from a large, aging duckling into a swan to be reckoned with (at least above the water line). There’s been many a late night for the IBM.com team—and the “wow” factor inherent in its new design has gone a long way toward keeping it in the top slot this year.

It’s been many a moon since Cisco.com had its overnight makeover—but this team’s intrepid iterative design strategy keeps this site fresh and innovative season after season. Cisco.com has building a better mousetrap down to a science—and that’s why it bumped IBM.com over and shares the #1 spotlight this year.

Usability & Effectiveness | The best hold their own

It’s no surprise that the overall winners—IBM.com and Cisco.com—also aced the usability & effectiveness tests. Both teams have been busy performing some pretty substantial site facelifts over the past year—and their high wire acts paid some nice dividends.

CA.com, IBM Software Group and Symantec.com complete the top five usability roster. CA.com held its own (third place), IBM Software jumped into fourth (from 6^th), and Symantec.com — last year’s usability darling — slipped from third to fifth.

Symantec.com’s fall from grace sounds like bad news for the team, but it’s actually a bit of high praise. After all, most of the Symantec.com site hasn’t really changed much over the past 36 months. That’s a virtual lifetime in Internet years. Staying in the top five is a testament to all of the hard work that went into this site’s base design and architecture. But times are changing—and it will be interesting to see if Symantec.com can keep up.

Content, features & capabilities | The same dance continues and Dell finally gets its bragging rights.

Mirror, mirror on the wall. Which is the biggest Website of all? Once the mist in the mirror clears, you’ll be looking at HP.com. In fact, this year, HP.com succeeded in getting the top spot all to itself by bumping off its long-standing 80 pound rival gorilla IBM.com. If you squint real hard in the mirror, you’ll see Cisco.com quietly making the donuts in third place.

While IBM, HP, and Cisco executed their complex kabuki dances, Dell.com was busy thumping some other sites down the Index. This year, it took the top spot in the online support category after watching HP and IBM toss the winner’s baton back and forth. We’ve always challenged Dell.com’s self-proclaimed assertion that its support was the biggest & best in the business. Now it’s (partially) true.

Subscribers can pick it up in the Library right now. If you’re not a subscriber you can pick up a copy from the site here.

Subscribers Login Here. Non-subscribers can learn more about The Library here.

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.

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.

Fair warning, this post is long!

IBM.com has launched revised home and solutions pages that feature the next major piece in its evolution: a new take on mega-menus. Not surprisingly, IBM.com has put its own spin on what is fast becoming an industry norm. In this Don’t Miss/Don’t Bother we weigh in on the pros and cons of IBM.com’s latest design.

Marty | Neutral (with a qualified Don’t Bother)

One thing that’s sure about IBM: it always marches to the tune of its own drummer. That’s why I wasn’t really surprised when IBM.com launched its own rendition of the mega-menu.  With browser in hand, I took it for a spin.

After putting it through its paces, I’m essentially neutral about this evolution.

On the plus side, it’s lighting fast and creates a slick first impression. By using the whole page width, it makes maximum use of page real estate. This, in turn, makes it easier to handle those pesky stakeholders who insist on having their little piece of heaven on the global nav. It’s also a design optimized for companies with huge product and services portfolios.  Clearly IBM fits that bill.

So why am I neutral?  Let me count three ways.

Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. There’s an old saw that nature abhors a vacuum—and the Web is no exception. Take IBM.com’s mega-menu real estate for example. Although a savvy design makes this menu look manageable at first blush, it is actually packed with 145 links spread across 5 main category tabs. The Solutions and Products tabs are the whoppers in the family, weighing in at 36 and 37 links respectively. Fortunately, the Solutions menu is listed in alphabetical order. I guess the “Products” tab owners missed the class on how to do A-Z categorization.

To be fair, there is no doubt that IBM.com’s new mega-menus are pencil slim if compared to the 200+ links buried in its older fly-out menus. But that doesn’t mean that progress should be measured in a best practice vacuum.

Here, consider two other mega-menu powerhouses with the same general tab layout: Cisco.com and Juniper.net.  Cisco.com’s mega menus clock in with 60 total links; roughly half of them (28) are on its new support mega menu (which qualifies as a new best practice and the industry’s first mega menu workhorse, read more here).  Meanwhile, Juniper.net weighs in at a very svelte 44 links.

As important, both of these sites visually break up their lists of links using asymmetrical layouts (Juniper.net) and, in the case of Cisco.com, additional visual cues that make it easy to spy and select the right links.

So what’s the point?  Simple. Finding and acting on a navigation decision is much faster and easier on the Cisco.com and Juniper.net sites.

When Mr. Magoo is you. Although most users will find the navigation panel easy to read, those in front of larger, high resolution screens are sure to have Mr. Magoo moments. One culprit is IBM’s decision to present links in a medium gray color—which is intended to provide a clear contrast as a link turns white when touched by a mouse. In practical use, this means that the Mr. Magoo crowd will end up mousing over every link in the lists until the correct one lights up. A beautiful design point, to be sure, but not one optimized for those of us whose arms aren’t quite long enough anymore. (If you don’t understand the reference, go ask your Mom).

On the plus side, I’m glad to report that viewing this new design on an iPad is a perfect user experience.  The font is an ideal size and the links work well with the touch of a finger. At the other end of the spectrum, don’t even get me started about the experience on a smartphone.

The law of unintended consequences. Everyone who works on the Web knows about the law of unintended consequences. The day the Oracle Technology Network site hijacked the Oracle.com home page (schwoops!). The year that Cisco’s IT organization redesigned and launched a new site—which created such an uproar that it had to provide a side link to the old site and ended up hiring a professional Website team (there’s a lesson here).

IBM.com’s marriage between its scrolling mega-menu and its F1 feature is just such an “unintended consequences” moment.

Simply put, users who happen to be moving to a menu on the right at the precise time that the F1 feature is cycling to the left are likely to have something akin to an out-of-body experience. Since a moving picture’s worth a thousand words, I’ve loaded a video of this experience into our Case Study Library. Just to let you know, a preemptive dose of Dramamine is strongly recommended.

So what does this mean in practical application?  Simple. If you plan to follow in IBM.com’s footsteps it’s a good idea to settle on static F1’s or a design that allows users to manually step through multiple features on the page. Combine automatic features and moving navigation willy nilly and you’ll need to hand out air sick bags.

Of course there’s plenty of other pros and cons associated with this new mega-menu launch—including why following IBM.com’s lead will require a design commitment well beyond your home page and why this is likely to be an unpopular decision with stakeholders.  For many companies facing limited budgets, marginal executive sponsorship, and a sea of cranky stakeholders, IBM.com’s gambit qualifies as a nasty rabbit hole you might want to avoid and thus, a Don’t Bother moment.

I’ve outlined these and other issues in my new case study which is available in the siteIntelligence Case Studies Library. If you are a subscriber, click here (you’ll need your log in credentials; Dramamine is highly recommended). If you are not a subscriber you don’t need Dramamine – and can learn more about this service here.

Kenna Dian | Don’t Bother

I have been using IBM.com’s new mega-menu design for a week now—opening it, closing it, spinning it, reading it. But after poking and prodding it every way possible I am only left with one question: where’s the added value?

If the purpose of a mega-menu is to display more navigation links using a larger panel, then IBM has hit the jackpot. But that is only one measly piece of a much larger puzzle. Mega-menus are also supposed to make a site’s global navigation easier for visitors to use. This is a much bigger job—and one where IBM misses the mark by a country mile.

IMHO, here’s why.

First, each panel is a blizzard of navigation links. Each menu is completely devoid of any design elements that would help users visually separate one category from another. In practical use, you end up scrutinizing each link to find the one you need, which is about as much fun as reading the white pages. Usability challenge: scannability.

Second, the topic headers are hot—or maybe not. After wandering through these menus for 4 days, Marty finally let me in on the secret: the yellow headers are actually links. Funny, I was wondering why some headers got to play on the “A” team (yellow font) while the others seemed to be permanently benched (grey font). I still don’t know the answer (but I can guess). Usability challenges: scannability (again), breaking your own convention, and category confusion.

Third, the categories in the global navigation bar aren’t linked to a top level page; their sole purpose is to open the navigation menu. Visitors who want to see all of IBM’s solutions, products, or services must hunt down the “all [insert site area]” link hidden in the blizzard of links. Oh, and support? Forget it. There is no “all” link in this panel. Bottom line, customers must know their destination or be in the know about the yellow header trick. Usability challenges: scannability (yet again), confusion, and inept zone access.

Fourth, visitors have to click on a link in the global navigation bar to open the panel, but if they let their pointer slip, this panel it will slap shut faster than a thousand pound door. This not only violates the current “click to open, click to close” convention; it also creates a rousing game of “now you see it, now you don’t” while the visitor figures out how to drive the menu. Usability challenges: common conventions, missed expectations, and general confusion (again).

From one perspective, I could argue that these issues are first experience nits that regular users will learn to work around. That might be true. But then there’s my final gripe.

Sometimes the IBM.com home page behaves like a Whirling Dervish. Here, the culprit is the marriage between the page’s navigation panel and the F1 feature. Select a panel to the right while the feature graphic is doing its thing and you’ll feel like you’ve ended up in a Tea Cup at Disneyland. Here, I agree with Marty. It’s a good idea to have Dramamine in your Web surfing kit. Usability challenges: breaking common conventions (again) and too many moving parts.

In the final analysis, I want to like IBM.com’s new mega-menu. I really, really do. But, every time I take it for a (open, read, close) spin I wonder what value I’m getting for all the work, time, and effort it takes to get what I need and go where I want to go. For this reason, I have to give IBM.com’s new mega-menu a reluctant Don’t Bother rating. Think of it as an opportunity for other sites to learn from IBM.com and do it better.

Other Stuff to Do:

Read how Cisco.com’s Support mega-menu raises the bar—again

Subscribers can check out the related case study in the siteIntelligence Case Studies Library. If you are a subscriber, click here (login required).

If you are not a subscriber you can learn more about this service here.

When Cisco.com launched its mega-menu last year it set the best practice bar—and it was high. The mega-menu provided greater access into a large (and sometimes unwieldy) site. Its design was easy to scan and use. And, it was also attractive—which is no small feat in a small space. In the siteIQ blog Cisco launches drop down mega menus & fat footers, we applauded the design and architecture of its Product and Services menu. This post welcomes the Support menu into the best practice fold.

Last week, Cisco.com introduced a substantially expanded support panel into its mega-menu portfolio. One look from the untrained eye will see it as stuffing 10 pounds of potatoes in a 5 pound sack—a recipe for a mega-menu disaster for any site. But, support is a different animal than marketing. It is truly task-based. More access is key—the quicker the better. That requires functionality, scannability, and a nod towards popularity. This is where Cisco.com gets it—and the gold.

Functionality | Cisco.com’s support menu didn’t just throw more links at customers. It added support links for the products and resources that customers need the most–and access to others just a click away. But the functionality that sets it apart is the support documentation and downloads search boxes, and links to open or check support cases right in the menu. That makes these features available from anywhere on the site. Now that is customer service.

Scannability | This is actually the cornerstone to the success of Cisco.com’s mega-menu. They put as much effort into its panel design as its Web pages. Links are categorized into high-level segments using common terms. Sub-categories are separated by lines that make it easy to see where each group of links begins and ends. A bit of consumer product imagery does double-duty by helping home/home office users identify their product, while spicing up the design. Customers can find what they need (or realize it isn’t in the menu) in seconds—and support is where seconds count.

Popularity | This is where Cisco.com’s support menu truly pushes the boundaries. The Downloads menu lists the most popular downloads at the time. This isn’t your Mother’s static mega-menu. Its dynamic, real-time, and addresses customer’s immediate needs. That’s real innovation.

If you are tasked with creating the “perfect” mega-menu and don’t have heartburn yet, you should. This implementation isn’t lightweight. It requires careful research, a rock-solid platform, and crystal clear objectives–hallmarks of all Cisco.com’s launches. This makes Cisco.com one to watch.

Other Stuff to Do:

Read our review of the new IBM.com mega-menu in Don’t Miss/Don’t Bother.

Subscribers can check out the detailed case study about Cisco.com’s Support mega-menu launch in the Best Practice Case Studies Library. If you are a subscriber, click here (login required).

If you are not a subscriber you can learn more about this service here.

Last month Cisco released the latest evolution of Cisco.com, and the results are nothing short of amazing. Visitors taking a quick spin around top levels of the site will notice obvious improvements. The introduction of a more vibrant color palette. Updated page layouts. A new toolbar at the bottom of the page. And, some tweaks to its best-in-class mega-menu. But these enhancements, while nice, aren’t what make this redesign a step above the rest. The things that make the difference are far more subtle.

Design

Increased white space. Cisco.com has injected additional space around everything—content panels, images, headers, text, navigation panels—everything.  Benefit: Visitors can scan pages more quickly and easily.

Smarter use of imagery. Cisco.com has always displayed some of the most eye-catching photos of any IT Website, and was pretty savvy about using them. This time around, however, there seems to be fewer of them, and each and every one has a reason to be there. Benefits: Visitors can intuit feature content topics, navigation categories, and target audiences without reading a single word on the page.

Navigation and Architecture

All audiences receive equal billing. When most people think Cisco, they think products for enterprise companies. But Cisco also offers products and support for the SMB and Home/Home Office crowd. The latest redesign makes this more obvious than ever before. The global mega-menu provides separate navigation tabs for Enterprise, SMB, and Home audiences. And visitors who missed them there will find them at the bottom of all site pages, and often on second (and sometimes even lower) level pages. Cisco.com’s smart use of tab-top designs and compact navigation styles also makes access to other audience areas easy without taking up much space. Benefits: It informs SMB and Home/Home Office visitors that Cisco.com serves more than just Enterprise companies. It quickly redirects visitors that have wandered off track back to the site areas that best fits their needs. And, it provides greater visibility of all Cisco products—not just those for the Enterprise set.

The “Solutions” navigators are gone, but solutions-class content is not forgotten. Navigation to murky “Solutions” marketing is gone. But this doesn’t mean that visitors won’t get solutions-class content. Now these messages are artfully woven throughout the product and services marketing click streams and content. Benefits: Visitors intuitively identify Cisco’s products and services as solutions to their needs.  Also, visitors understand Cisco’s offerings quicker since solutions and product marketing content is integrated into a single click stream.

Improved “snacking” architecture. The former Cisco.com Website displayed some traits of the highly-effective “snacking” architecture. However, an  over-abundance of page content and navigational options often negated the benefits this approach provides. Cisco.com’s latest redesign has put page content on a strict diet, making the “snacking” architecture really shine. Benefit: Visitors digest even large amounts of content more effectively since it is delivered in bite-size pieces throughout the site.

Content

The content is shorter, crisper, and easier to read. The previous version of the Cisco.com Website seemed stuck in the trap most IT Websites find themselves in—it talked too much. The content was too long, extremely dense, listed too many benefits, and was often delivered in a single page of prose.  Not anymore. Content on the new Cisco.com is more focused, crisply written, and talks directly to the reader. Benefit: Visitors absorb marketing messages because they stay engaged while reading the content.

The content is delivered in small chunks. Cisco.com has been breaking up its content little by little over the last 12 months. But the latest site redesign really breaks it down. Marketing click streams now deliver shorter bits of content across multiple pages. Meanwhile, some product marketing pages distribute content by topic on the same page using tab-top navigation. Benefits: Visitors can experience a unique marketing message by choosing the information that interests them. Executives and managers can explore content that addresses how Cisco’s products address their business challenges, without wading through technical specifications. Conversely, Network Administrators can dig into the technical specifications by bypassing solutions-class content.

Companies eying new markets should avoid “Marie Antoinette” and “Frankenstein” support strategies. Here’s why.

You can tell a lot about a company’s prime customers by its Website—and even more by how customers fresh from acquisitions and market gambits get lost in the shuffle.

Examine companies like Dell, that has moved from its consumer roots into enterprise markets. Or, IBM’s, CA’s and Cisco’s endeavors to translate historical successes in the enterprise realm into SMB markets. And then there is Oracle’s attempt to execute simultaneous vertical and horizontal market strategies by lashing together its software applications with Sun’s hardware and storage products. There are plenty of examples.

If you think the “tell” of these (and other) companies’ successes or failures are found in their online marketing content, you would be looking in the wrong direction. In reality, the “tell” is found in their support and training zones.

Before support and training Web teams even entertain the hope for a successful market move, they must take these two approaches off the table: 

• Let ‘em eat cake. Some companies assume that all customers are created equal – and simply dump new customers into existing support and training zones. Think of it as the “Marie Antoinette (let ‘em eat cake)” strategy. In this scenario, enterprise customers don’t get the complex answers and training they need – and consumers get lost in messy support & training sites optimized for large accounts. In either case, it’s a bad behavior.

• Watch the birdie. Other companies decide to bolt market-specific support and training sites onto their existing venues. Think of this as the “Frankenstein” strategy. In this scenario, the company’s favored markets get center seat, while new markets and acquisitions get the “oh by the way” links in the right column, or at the bottom of support and training home pages. There’s nothing like an invisible link to tell “acquired”customers that they are second class citizens.

Both of these approaches tell new customers two important things. That (1) the vendor is more than willing to sell them products, but (2) won’t do the hard work necessary to deliver “after-sales” support and training optimized for their needs.

From our POV, two memos should be sent when a company decides to move up or down market.

The first should go to the marketing teams, giving them a heads up that they need to open and populate new product zones.

The second (and arguably most important) should be sent to the teams managing the company’s support and training zones warning them that “Marie Antoinette” and “Frankenstein” gambits don’t work. These teams need to put on their thinking caps, and recalibrate how they view and deliver their training and support sites.

Related research: The eBusiness Index Report.  If you are a siteIQ client or subscriber, click here.

Powerful search capabilities have hit a tipping point. Time to get them on your five point plan.

Once upon a time, search was a lot like socks. One of the basics you need to operate a well-dressed Website.

Search has also been pretty simple. Put out a box, fiddle with some “advanced search” explanations, spend some quality man-months meta-tagging mountains of content —  and let the rest take care of itself.

That is, until today.

Just in case you haven’t checked, search isn’t your father’s Oldsmobile anymore.  A new roster of features & capabilities are changing the rules.  Features like  . . .

• Adaptive keyword search that allows visitors to hone in on the right term before they hit the “go” button.

• Marketing optimized search that puts the right products front and center – along with the things you want visitors to do (like try or buy).

• Powerful post search filtering that quickly divides the wheat from the chaff.

• And last, but certainly not least, complete search results descriptions – instead of the truncated nonsense seen on most Websites these days.

This, of course, brings up two questions. Who does it now, and who does it best?

The first question can be answered by a couple of summary graphs from our new Search Master Plan.  (see more results here)

The second?  Depends on your personal preference. Here’s my ‘must see’ list.

• Apple.com: adaptive search, best in class descriptions, and great marketing optimized behaviors;
• Cisco.com: adaptive search & powerful post search filtering;
• Adobe.com: amazing marketing optimized search capabilities; and
• Dell.com: another post search filtering powerhouse.

Oh and one last thing. It’s time to start optimizing your search engine around your target audiences.  Like socks, you’re going to need more than one pair.

Click on this graph to see a lightbox of all best practices

Innovative twists on an emerging trend

Cisco.com launched its new mega menu and fat footer designs this morning.

Its entry into these design arenas pushes both approaches well past the innovation point and on the way to becoming a competitive requirement. In other words, if mega and fat aren’t on your plan for next year, it’s time to get them on the list.

Of the two, fat footers are the closest to a tipping point, and are a great place to put all of those “must have but no room” links that stakeholders clamber to have on the home page. Mega menu adoption rates are slightly behind, but heading for a tipping point over the next 12 months. They are powerful navigation and marketing real estate for the companies that know how to use them.

But back to Cisco, which provides some interesting variations on emerging themes. Important assets that were once hidden inside the site are now front and center. Direct links to Cisco.com’s stores. Fast paths to find a partner. Cisco’s primary product categories, industry focus and the ability to browse by company size.

But the really brilliant behaviors can be seen in the products & services and support mega menus. Rather than throw out a blizzard of well-organized links, Cisco.com’s new products & services mega menu contextualizes Cisco’s massive product portfolio by target market – with some nice interactive behaviors thrown into the mix. The support mega menu allows users to search for product support right from the home page – and brings previously invisible support zones (SMB and Linksys) directly into the visitor’s view.

Although not Web 3.0 per se (although Cisco.com is a leader here), these mega menu designs are part of a couple of important design trends.

First and foremost, they flatten a Website by allowing visitors to bypass (often dysfunctional) landing pages and drill directly into the site. In essence, it creates a Website that is perceivably flatter and less cumbersome for visitors to drive and use. As important, these techniques free up valuable home page real estate so companies can promote and market their wares. In Cisco.com’s case, it has also used some of this real estate to create an elegant home for those gnarly news feeds and important social media connections.

So what’s missing from Cisco.com’s new mega and fat design? From a home page perspective, not much. Inside the site, however, is a different story. In a perfect world, these savvy navigation capabilities would be persistent across the Cisco.com site (see Juniper.net and Novell.com for examples). Once Cisco.com achieves this objective, it will have some of the best global navigation behaviors across the sites we watch.