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: Read More→
With some best practices and innovations in store.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. Read More→
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. Read More→
In case you missed my last posts, this is the time when we announce our eBusiness Index rankings. Here’s a bird’s eye view of the Websites that set the standards in the IT industry.
Related research: The eBusiness Index Report. If you are a siteIQ client or subscriber, click here.
There are plenty of hits and misses on this year’s roster. My favorites are . . .In my last post, I shared some info about the top five Websites on the siteIQ eBusiness Index. Here’s my interesting surprises and “oops” list:
Symantec.com’s usability ranks second, and the site misses a “Good Practice” rating by a hair.
Juniper.net and Oracle.com complete the usability top five. Of the two, Juniper.net is most likely to move up a slot and knock CA.com off its perch.
Intel.com aced the online recruiting category and is the only four star (the best) in this category. (OK, so most recruiting zones are a big snooze – but we have to give Intel.com chops for its four star performance).
Services marketing continues to be Nortel.com’s claim to fame; HP.com and IBM.com are still second tier contenders.
Juniper.net hits the high note in the communities category – but Cisco.com and Intel.com also operate four star (the best) communities. (This is another way of saying that the new guys are zipping past community pioneers).
If call to action is your bag, look no further than Cisco.com. It is the only call to action “Best Practice” site on the eBusiness Index.
Newegg.com’s e-commerce capabilities puts it with the big boys: Dell.com & HP.com. Newegg ranks third with four stars (the best) and a “Good Practice” nod.
A couple of new entrants on the 2010 eBusiness Index roster did better than expected.
Related research: The eBusiness Index Report. If you are a siteIQ client or subscriber, click here.
Juniper.net is pursuing an interesting strategy which I suspect most companies have missed. Last year, it did two things.
It launched a completely new Website in February.
Then it executed a wholesale update in October.
That wouldn’t be important, except for one thing. The October refresh was executed across the entire Website. From top to bottom. From stem to stern.
This, as it turns out, introduces a new design strategy into the mix. Until now, most Website teams have taken an incremental improvement approach, limiting updates and innovations to certain areas of their sites. A new home page; revamped product marketing zones; or a new look and feel for the top three layers of a site. The net result is that users have to re-learn the site every time they move between zones.
In contrast, Juniper.net’s approach is iterative. It’s not interested in hitting solid singles. It goes for the home run.
There are a couple of things to remember here. Read More→
Click on this graph to see a lightbox of all best practices in this post
It’s interesting how something starts to hit a tipping point on the IT Web. Mega-menus are one of these designs – and fat footers aren’t far behind them.
In the mega-menu race, there are two main strategies in play, and some good and best practices worth considering.
On the strategy side, we have two basic approaches in evidence these days: mega-menus targeted at straight navigation – and those that add product marketing, corporate marketing and call to action dimensions. In every case, there are great examples of both approaches on the IT Web. Here’s some places to start: Read More→
Microsoft.com isn’t the only business software site that suffers from this “too many cooks” phenomenon
Recently, we spent some quality time pondering why business software sites are falling short of the competitive and effectiveness mark. A deep dive into these sites suggests that that the real culprits are site zone operators who are ignoring site-wide rules of the road. The net result is a parade of page designs, layouts, and content delivery approaches that make it almost impossible for visitors to research and purchase multiple products—and poor usability & effectiveness scores.
Microsoft.com provides an excellent example of this challenge in action. Each of Microsoft.com’s major product zones use completely different templates, page layout conventions, and navigation & content structures. This approach works fine when visitors are interested in researching & purchasing one product type and don’t need to venture outside a particular zone to access information & tools. Visitors looking for multiple solutions that cross product specific zone boundaries, however, will find that locating information & comparing products can be a deadly difficult task.
As it turns out, Microsoft.com isn’t the only business software site that suffers from this “too many cooks” phenomenon. In general, sites in this industry tend to be built on this archetype more than any other industry segment. Unfortunately, the end result are Websites that, at first blush, deliver a global look & feel, only to end up coming unraveled once visitors move beyond the first two levels of the site. This behavior is a classic symptom of poor governance policies—or .com organizations that have simply succumbed to zone anarchy on their sites. Read More→
