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.

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

Last week, we took a close look at how classic professional services Websites fare when they are put under the siteIQ microscope–and made some pretty substantial changes in the ways these Websites are measured on the siteIQ benchmarks. The net result is a much slimmer benchmark that hones in on the unique ways these companies do business on the Web.

Since there’s no time like the present to see the impact of these changes, we put the three professional services Websites on the siteIQ eBusiness Index through this new evaluation model. Then we published the results in a new report.

So how did things change?

A lot.

First and foremost, Accenture.com moved from second to first place courtesy of very strong navigational, search, and services marketing scores. Services marketing now rates a Good Practice. As important, Accenture.com’s overall usability beats all comers.

IBM Global Services’ Website ended up in a reasonably close second place. It matches Accenture.com’s services marketing Good Practice, but took it on the chin in the navigation and search categories. Just goes to show you that paying attention to those pesky architecture and cross-site utilities can make a huge difference.

And how did Deloitte.com fare in a rising tide that floated all boats? Ho hum. It still ranks third and gained one star–but missed the Good Practice dock by a mile. This site’s best showing is in (yikes!) online recruiting. On the other hand, every services and corporate marketing category ranks third.

And what about the rest of 2012? We’re betting that IBM Global Services’ slow motion revamp will start to pay dividends by the end of this year. That means that Accenture.com shouldn’t rest on its laurels–and should pay close attention to the cult of personality strategy IBM.com is rolling out.

More scoring details, plus new rankings and ratings, are available in our new Professional Services Report. If you already own a copy of our earlier report, a new copy is on the way to your desktop. Library subscribers can pick up their copy here (you’ll need those pesky log in credentials). If you aren’t a subscriber you 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.

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)

To get all the gritty details–star ratings, competitive rankings, and detailed scoring–by category, by Website, and overall–click here to buy the report.

(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.

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

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.

2011 is turning out to be the age of the home page. We’re seeing updates in record numbers– and some designs are actually breaking new ground. On the other hand, few of these designs are actually making it down to lower levels of the site—which is a big no-no in our book.

I’ll leave that point for a future rant. Meanwhile, let’s take a look at who’s producing these new home pages, the important design points and strategies they bring to the party—and explore the age-old question: why only the home page?

I’ll start with the “who” and “how” and leave my humble opinions for the end.

Juniper.net: An end-to-end refresh, plus a savvy F1. Design-wise, Juniper.net’s boasting a more monochromatic color palette these days that’s carried across the entire site. This attention to detail isn’t much of a surprise.  Juniper.net is one of few sites that is persistently refreshed from top to bottom and end to end.

But the real feather in Juniper.net’s cap is its deft F1 feature, which features its CTO in a series of inline videos discussing the issues and questions important to potential buyers. Think of it as the first home page that actually tells a complete story.

Level3.com: A top to bottom redo–but the home page is a bridge too far.  Level3.com’s claim to fame is actually a complete Website redesign—different layout, colors, and content approach.

Like Juniper.net, the new Level3.com home page F1 centers on addressing common questions—with a huge focus on differentiating Level3 from its competitors.  How it achieves this, however, is different. Instead of using execs or employees (a la Juniper.net) Level3.com opts for three fictitious characters who step in to discuss questions selected by the visitor. The feature is professionally done, but doesn’t feel as authentic as Juniper.net’s.

HP.com: Watching an interesting design wander off the rails. I wrote about HP.com’s new and evolving home page in our most recent Don’t Miss/Don’t Bother column, so I won’t bore you with a second rendition of who shot John.  With two Don’t Bother votes, there’s plenty to learn from HP.com’s home page launch.

SAP.com: A home page design that is as revolutionary as it is attractive. This re-design tips all the previous home page and Website architecture designs on their heads.  To learn more about this launch, read my blog about how SAP.com’s home page re-defines Website architecture. Let’s just say it’s not for the faint of heart—and will require a complete site revamp to pull it off.

IBM.com: Playing catch up, but moving in the right direction. IBM.com’s latest home page redesign is a bit like watching a launch in slow motion.  This transformation started this spring with the addition of a fat (and I mean fat) footer, a slightly darker palette, savvy graphics, and an inline mega menu that allows visitors to drill down into the Smarter Planet zone (read my POV on this great zone here).  Last week, we saw IBM.com’s take on the mega-menu revolution.  My POV?  Eh. Check our latest Don’t Miss/Don’t Bother review.

Microsoft.com: Back to the future.  Microsoft.com’s new home page is interesting. The layout has changed, but the colors remain the same—which makes it look like a lightweight redesign. It’s not.

In a turn away from the trends, all mega-menu style navigation is out—and static (pull down) navigation is in.  Also new:  site information organized in colorful decks instead of floating in space.  Not better or worse—just different.

Adobe.com: Variations on the theme clobbers consistency.  Adobe.com’s new design keeps its graphically rich heritage, but does away with the impressive flash animations. Is this a response to the recent backlash against Flash, or just Adobe.com maturing? Hard to tell.

Other changes include a darker color palette and a page shift from the left to the center. The latter may seem like no big deal, but it is affecting overall site consistency due to lower-level pages that still display a flush-left design.

The Gist

So, why are we seeing so many new home pages? Well, when you can’t afford a facelift, buy some better makeup.  But here’s the catch. A redo might give you a feel good boost and bragging rights with your execs, but if your lower-level pages are aging badly this isn’t money well spent.

Why?  Because a home page is only a fraction of the user equation.  In the real world, most of your visitors spend their quality time inside your site—wandering through those aging designs, navigation structures, and dreadful content you are ignoring.  That’s not the promise these cool new home pages are selling. Which means you just invested in an expensive game of bait and switch.

Each of the case studies focuses on a different design or content best practice—but for my money, the “cult of personality” discussion is a compelling moment of brilliance. It looks like the IBM Smarter Planet team has actually cracked the code on how to marry social media behaviors with the company’s core business propositions. Here’s a thirty second summary of Kenna’s POV.

For the bulk of its 100 years, IBM has been the icon of the monolithic, faceless organization. The Machine. The Man. The System. This reputation was so entrenched that is employees were endowed with a unique nickname: “the blue suits”. Thus, it’s surprising – no shocking – that IBM should be the first company to successfully transform itself from a corporation into a clan. And its Website is playing no small role in its metamorphosis.

The strategy is brilliant because

• It leverages IBM’s core sales model (building relationships), gives it the golden opportunity to demonstrate expertise and passion, and translates a faceless corporation into actual people who are experts in their fields.
• It works by using photos, dynamic profiles, and links to start conversations.
• It wraps these attributes in a savvy design that takes advantage of new less is more white space trends and short, snappy & relevant content that is second to none.

And then there are the graphics. Relevant charts with factoids. Eye catching video panels. Moments of visual whimsy and delight (my favorite is the carrot that illustrates how long it takes to get from the farm to a store in California). This from that old stuffy IBM?

Library subscribers can read more about how and why this site works, view a video, and download these case studies at http://bit.ly/eOMKjU. Have your log in credentials handy—or contact us if you’ve forgotten them.

I don’t talk about Oracle.com much. In fact, I speak about them so little that one would be lead to believe that I hold a grudge against them. Sure, they unceremoniously erased one of the best enterprise systems sites from the Internet–Sun.com. But, I won’t hold that against them. No, I don’t write about them much for one reason:

My Mother taught me if you don’t have something nice to say about someone, don’t say anything at all.

There’s a litany of issues I have with Oracle.com ranging from design to innovation (or rather a lack thereof). But today, my rant is about Oracle.com’s content.

With communities and social networking becoming a requirement for IT Websites, product and service marketing content is becoming more focused on visitors’ needs. The prose tells them how the company’s products and services will solve their problems and help achieve their business goals. Some connect their technologies and benefits with real-world scenarios that visitors relate to. The best of the best even make it downright engaging to read.

The new message: “It’s all about you.”

Let’s compare this content approach to that on Oracle.com. A review of over twenty hardware and software product pages showed that Oracle’s name is mentioned a whopping 5 times more often than the words “you” or “yours” on a single page*. On some that number increased to over 10 to one. Combine that with page layouts that always begin with essays about “Why Oracle” and articles about its industry leadership, and you only get one message:

“It’s all about Oracle.”

But Oracle is not alone

HP.com also suffers from the “all about me” disease. HP.com’s ratios almost perfectly mirror Oracle.com’s. Product page content often mention HP five times more often than “you”. This increases to 10 to 1 on pages that provide lists of links to its products or related documents. HP.com does have one saving grace. Its page layouts mix up the content so it’s less obvious that HP is tooting its own horn.

The Bottom Line

The fact is people buy products because they have a problem that needs solved—not because the company is (or thinks it is) fabulous. Tout the product. Relate it to visitors’ needs. If they can understand this and it solves their problem, they will buy it.

What to avoid:

• Sentences that begin with the company name: if there is more than one, there is too many
• Listing the company name before actual product names: if visitors are on the company site, they know what company made the product.
• Topics that only speak about the company: this includes “Why [insert company name]?” content that runs more than 3 sentences.

How do the other enterprise systems sites fare?

IBM.com (software and hardware products) | The ratio of the usage of “IBM” to “you” or “yours” was a surprising 1:1 on many IBM Software page. In fact, on some pages the word “you” was used twice as much as “IBM”. IBM.com’s hardware product content does not fare quite as well with a ratio of 3 to 1.

Intel.com Business | The Intel.com site did not fare quite as well as IBM.com. On average Intel’s name was mentioned 3 times more often than the word “you”.

*Navigation panels were not included. Product names and links located in the body of the page were.