Unfriendly websites
With broadband becoming more ubiquitous, more and more people are spending time online on websites offering downloads and e-commerce. This, however, does not come without complaints.
One gets two types of websites, friendly and unfriendly. Many local websites are unfriendly. Why? Because they stroke the ego of the web designer, webmaster or the web owner.
Some websites are great looking when one first opens the site, but then the nightmare starts. Images are huge and navigation is impossible. What web designers forget is that they are the experts and most of the general public visiting their website are not. Many web surfers visiting a particular website are first time visitors and if the information is not logically presented they may never return.
Even with broadband becoming more ubiquitous, there are still many dial-up users which are aggravated when they try to access websites that contain images that have not been reduced for web viewing.
If you are looking for details on how to contact a company it is often easier to call 1023 and live through that frustration than searching for the contact details on the company website.
Sometimes the “contact us” link is tucked away in the top corner in an 8pt line. Ok you found it and clicked on it. Slowly a form appears which expects you to complete all your credentials and type a long message about your reason for wanting to contact the company. Damn it! You only wanted to speak to someone to get directions because the map they offered elsewhere amongst the maze of scrambled information would not download.
Oh well, in for a penny, in for a pound. So you click “send message” and wait for a phone call. Hours go by, even days and if you lucky you may get a call some time, but maybe never. It is not the web designer’s fault that the backend is not up to speed with the term customer services, but if the basic information such as address, and telephone details were made easily available the problem would not occur.
In many ways a website is only as good as the back office service. Recently I had a complaint about a cleaning product – it smelt foul. Regarding myself as a good web browser I decided to send a complaint. Well the product had no contact details but did have the name of the manufacturer.
I Googled the manufacturer’s name and back came the details. (What would we do without Google?) The company website wasn’t the greatest but “Contact us” was prominent. I sent my story and within an hour received an email back with an apology and asking my address details. A week later the replacement product arrived with an extra one for the inconvenience. Great Service!
But back to websites, webmasters and designers should swallow their pride and talk to the public. Check what people like or dislike about your website and if you have the budget get in touch with the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth. Its department of computer science and information systems do usability testing. NMMU has a fully-equipped laboratory that will test the time users take to navigate various sections of your website. It is a great tool to fine tune user acceptance.
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