What would you think if someone told you they could eliminate the first 3 layers of your site? The blizzard of landing pages. Semi-redundant content. Pesky page load times. All of it.

Sounds impossible?  It’s not.

Last week SAP.com launched a monster redesign that promises to tip many rules on their head. Here’s four reasons to pay attention:

A new home page design & navigation. Believe it or not, SAP.com has been at the forefront of home page design trends for years.

When conventional designs put primary features in boxes, SAP.com made them the entire background. When mega-menus hit the airwaves, SAP.com invented the navigation mega-pane.

True to form, its latest design doesn’t introduce a totally new concept. It just executes an existing concept on a much larger, bolder scale.

Welcome to the pane-in-pane effect. The magic that totally changes the conventional Website architecture rules lies in SAP.com’s page-in-page mega-menus. This design allows visitors to browse two, and in some cases, three layers deep—without ever leaving the home page. Think of the implications. A world without long, boring landing pages. Navel gazing blather. Off the reservation designs. Long download times.

A peek into the future. One look at the site will tell you that the SAP.com site is still a work in progress, but you can see the end game in a couple of areas, such as the On-Demand CRM for Small and Medium Enterprises or On Demand Sales products. Here, SAP.com is laying the foundation for product marketing zones which operate as their own mini-sites. Sure, owners will have to color inside the lines and play inside the templates, but they will also get a clean, contemporary look and feel, plus control over their media, content, and message.

Don’t try this at home. Although SAP.com’s design is revolutionary and has some fantastic upsides, this approach isn’t for the faint of heart.  You need at least four things to pull this off—and none of them are optional.

1. Full buy-in from your boss, your boss’s boss, and stakeholders.  The first two will be easy.  The third? Not so much.
2. Execute centralized, iron-clad governance. A gulag mentality will probably work best.
3. Constantly monitor for rogue behaviors that quickly clobber the user experience. This is easier when you invest in #4.
4. Invest in a CMS system. If you don’t, you’ll go blind trying to chase stakeholders around.

SITEIQ VIEW | When you really examine the nuts and bolts of the new SAP.com site, you’ll see that it isn’t doing anything that we haven’t seen before. What sets it apart is that it’s taken a set of great ideas—and then reworked them to best effect. Used them on a grander scale. Pushed them a little farther.  Packaged them a little differently.  In the end, that’s what it takes to create a unique user experience — and a best in class Website.

The case study and video that details this re-design are available in the siteIntelligence Best Practice Library.

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Non-subscribers can learn more about The Library here.

Apple.com tests out a new startpage that leaves us going “Huh?”

Today apple.com startled some visitors with a “startpage” (it’s from the URL—it didn’t really have that name per se) chock full of the latest and greatest goings on at Apple.com. News, Tutorials, Movie trailers iTunes, and of course, the latest shopping deals. Apple…whaddya thinking?

Apple.com is the poster child of the latest minimalist design craze. Website teams everywhere are examining its site design to crack the code on presenting the most information in the simplest way. And the fact is, this startpage is overload for most companies today. That means it is a downright avalanche for Apple.com.

So please Apple.com. Continue to emulate the beautiful stark minimalism of the Apple products on your Website. Keep us guessing how you present your information so simply, but effortlessly. Please don’t change. We like you just the way you are.

This startpage was probably not seen by everyone. It seems it was on a random rotation, possibly for testing purposes. Apple.com, by this blog, I think you know my vote.

In case you haven’t noticed, CA.com recently launched a new site. As is our custom, we’ve delayed our deep-drive about six weeks to let the CA.com team find snafus and work out the bugs. Now it’s time to put the site through its paces. Here’s our Cliff’s Notes analysis: (siteIQ clients can read the complete analysis here. (log in required)

Pros

CA.com has retained its product marketing “snacking architecture,” which is one of the most powerful in the business. If you haven’t seen this in action, pick any CA product and follow the bouncing ball.

CA.com is one of few sites that know how to craft marketing content as a set of questions that speak to visitor objectives. If you need inspiration, CA.com is the place to start.

CA.com’s new design is consistent across the site; not many page owners missed the memo. CA.com is yet another example of the iterative design strategy we discussed in a recent post.

CA.com makes great use of tab-top organization on its product level pages (shades of Sun.com, yikes!). Overall, a tab-top tour de force.

Neutral

CA.com’s play on mega-menus brings it into the fold, but these menus are much less impressive than those deployed by Cisco.com and Juniper.net. Close, but no cigar.

Cons

CA.com just couldn’t resist the “eye candy” factor on its home page. In this case, it’s those revolving boxes that use type fonts that are a Mr. Magoo moment at any screen size – and whirl at the drop of a hat. Here, CA.com gets a B+ for visual impact – and D- for usability and relevance.

CA.com got hijacked on its way to the Web.2.0 ball. Although most videos are easily accessible, CA.com wraps its badly aging “On Demand” Webinars in draconian registration and access processes that will deter all but the most intrepid visitors. Let’s just say that CA.com gets a D- for its “on demand” promise.

This site pops more windows than a high rise in a hurricane. Most links pop a window without warning which, in turn, requires the visitor to stumble through their browser tabs to find the starting gate. Overall, a messy process and a very fractured experience.

Finally, no tour is complete without stepping through CA.com’s communities experience.  CA.com’s support-related communities are easily accessible and appear to be full of lively dialogs. Business communities? Not so much.

One reason might be the tortuous path visitors must take, which includes wading through an over-engineered “Second Life”-style destination packed with a talking head, downloadable brochures, and a link to the target community. Given the obstacles visitors must endure, it’s no surprise that CA.com’s fledgling business communities are the size of a newt (largest population is currently 42 members).

The Bottom Line

The new CA.com is a pretty new face that missed the memos on how to capitalize on Web 2.0 and social media marketing. Smart companies will study CA.com’s best-in-class product marketing click streams, and leave the rest to the marketing muses.