For most companies, having a web site is a necessity but it’s not enough to merely have a web site – it has to be good. A website can be thought of as your most persistent communication vehicle with customers and prospects. Perhaps the best thing about a web site is that it can be accessible by a huge amount of people from almost any location in the world and it can be updated whenever you want, unlike with an incorrect listing in the Yellow Pages for example (www.allbusiness.com). On first glance at the ICAEW’s (Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales) homepage, it is clear to see that the site is in fact very well-designed. It is difficult to find any major flaws but nevertheless, there are some suggestions which can be made which may improve the site to some degree.
A survey indicated that major factors for a successful web page include page loading speed, business content, navigation efficiency, security and marketing/customer focus (Gehrke, 1999). The ICAEW homepage loads very quickly with respect to the internet connection speeds that are widely available today and does not contain too many large graphics. However for users with slower internet connection speeds (e.g. 56k dial-up), perhaps it could be useful to offer a text-only (or low graphics) version of the website just as BBC do with their website. This would accommodate almost everybody who has internet access.
Another minor adjustment which can be made to the homepage is to reposition the central message slightly. “The centre of the homepage is the lead story. It is easier to get the eye to focus on one lead story than multiple stories of equal importance, where the eye tends to skim. The lead story acts to anchor the reader and help ‘lead’ them deeper into the website” (http://www.gerrymcgovern.com). The “Inspiring Business Confidence” box could be positioned more centrally to catch the focus of the reader and the text inside it could be made larger or put in bold to make it stand out more. This will ensure that ICAEW gets their message across to their intended audience.
Navigation efficiency is one area that the site can definitely be improved on in a number of ways. First of all, instead of directing you to another page to log in, it is much more convenient to be able to log in to your own account regardless of what page you are viewing on the site. This could be achieved by having a login box at the top of the page, similar to the style used on the ICAS (Institute of Chartered Accountants in Scotland) website. The tabs near the top of the homepage allows the user to navigate to specific sections of the website such as ‘qualifications’, ‘members’, ‘students’, etc, but in order to find the subsections for each category you have to access the relevant page first. For example to find the subsections for qualifications you must first access the qualifications page. For some people who are familiar with the site and know what they are looking for, this can be a slightly drawn-out process. One way to speed up navigation is to show all of the subsections for each category in a menu which appears when you hover over the link or click the link with your mouse.
Colour schemes of websites are also important. “Many times good layouts get spoiled because of the wrong selection of colour schemes. In real sense, colour scheme is a good weapon to enhance a layout. If you use colours carefully you can make wonders out of it” (http://www.layoutgalaxy.com). As ICAEW use red as their main colour, it is appropriate that they use red as the colour of all their links and headings but perhaps it is better to make use of various colours in order to improve navigation. On the ICAS website the tabs which direct you to different sections of the website are also colour-coded (blue for ‘home’, red for ‘about ICAS’, green for ‘members’ and yellow for ‘CA Students’). Once a section is selected the subsections appear on the left side of the page and these tabs for the subsections are also colour-coded in the relevant colour.
My personal belief is that functionality and usefulness are far more important to the success of your website than how nice and elegant it looks. In the case of ICAEW’s site, I believe that they use only one colour and small fonts to give the site a more ‘professional’ and stylish look. However using various colours would make it easier to navigate through the site and using a larger font size would make the text easier to read and more practical.
“Web 2.0 describes the changing trends in the use of World Wide Web technology and web design that aim to enhance creativity, communications, secure information sharing, collaboration and functionality of the web” (www.wikipedia.com). The ICAEW website does not contain many of the features of a Web 2.0 website. For example, a feature which is not available at the moment on the ICAEW website is RSS (Really simple syndication) feeds. This is a useful feature of modern-day websites. The feature itself is extremely useful for keeping users up-to-date with the latest news regarding the accountancy body. This could include news of upcoming events and changes in accounting standards. Having an RSS feed available would allow users to log on to their own RSS reader (e.g. www.bloglines.com) and then download all the news which they have not read yet. This is much more convenient than always checking out the news section on the ICAEW website.
Overall, the ICAEW website is a well-designed site and there are not many major flaws with it. The site has the layout and design of what a professional site should look like but the trade-off here is that the site suffers from a few practicality problems. In my opinion the content on a website is of vital importance; users do not spend time looking at websites but in fact, they spend their time reading the content that is on them.
A survey indicated that major factors for a successful web page include page loading speed, business content, navigation efficiency, security and marketing/customer focus (Gehrke, 1999). The ICAEW homepage loads very quickly with respect to the internet connection speeds that are widely available today and does not contain too many large graphics. However for users with slower internet connection speeds (e.g. 56k dial-up), perhaps it could be useful to offer a text-only (or low graphics) version of the website just as BBC do with their website. This would accommodate almost everybody who has internet access.
Another minor adjustment which can be made to the homepage is to reposition the central message slightly. “The centre of the homepage is the lead story. It is easier to get the eye to focus on one lead story than multiple stories of equal importance, where the eye tends to skim. The lead story acts to anchor the reader and help ‘lead’ them deeper into the website” (http://www.gerrymcgovern.com). The “Inspiring Business Confidence” box could be positioned more centrally to catch the focus of the reader and the text inside it could be made larger or put in bold to make it stand out more. This will ensure that ICAEW gets their message across to their intended audience.
Navigation efficiency is one area that the site can definitely be improved on in a number of ways. First of all, instead of directing you to another page to log in, it is much more convenient to be able to log in to your own account regardless of what page you are viewing on the site. This could be achieved by having a login box at the top of the page, similar to the style used on the ICAS (Institute of Chartered Accountants in Scotland) website. The tabs near the top of the homepage allows the user to navigate to specific sections of the website such as ‘qualifications’, ‘members’, ‘students’, etc, but in order to find the subsections for each category you have to access the relevant page first. For example to find the subsections for qualifications you must first access the qualifications page. For some people who are familiar with the site and know what they are looking for, this can be a slightly drawn-out process. One way to speed up navigation is to show all of the subsections for each category in a menu which appears when you hover over the link or click the link with your mouse.
Colour schemes of websites are also important. “Many times good layouts get spoiled because of the wrong selection of colour schemes. In real sense, colour scheme is a good weapon to enhance a layout. If you use colours carefully you can make wonders out of it” (http://www.layoutgalaxy.com). As ICAEW use red as their main colour, it is appropriate that they use red as the colour of all their links and headings but perhaps it is better to make use of various colours in order to improve navigation. On the ICAS website the tabs which direct you to different sections of the website are also colour-coded (blue for ‘home’, red for ‘about ICAS’, green for ‘members’ and yellow for ‘CA Students’). Once a section is selected the subsections appear on the left side of the page and these tabs for the subsections are also colour-coded in the relevant colour.
My personal belief is that functionality and usefulness are far more important to the success of your website than how nice and elegant it looks. In the case of ICAEW’s site, I believe that they use only one colour and small fonts to give the site a more ‘professional’ and stylish look. However using various colours would make it easier to navigate through the site and using a larger font size would make the text easier to read and more practical.
“Web 2.0 describes the changing trends in the use of World Wide Web technology and web design that aim to enhance creativity, communications, secure information sharing, collaboration and functionality of the web” (www.wikipedia.com). The ICAEW website does not contain many of the features of a Web 2.0 website. For example, a feature which is not available at the moment on the ICAEW website is RSS (Really simple syndication) feeds. This is a useful feature of modern-day websites. The feature itself is extremely useful for keeping users up-to-date with the latest news regarding the accountancy body. This could include news of upcoming events and changes in accounting standards. Having an RSS feed available would allow users to log on to their own RSS reader (e.g. www.bloglines.com) and then download all the news which they have not read yet. This is much more convenient than always checking out the news section on the ICAEW website.
Overall, the ICAEW website is a well-designed site and there are not many major flaws with it. The site has the layout and design of what a professional site should look like but the trade-off here is that the site suffers from a few practicality problems. In my opinion the content on a website is of vital importance; users do not spend time looking at websites but in fact, they spend their time reading the content that is on them.
References:
http://www.icaew.com
http://www.icas.org.uk
Gehrke, 1999, Determinants of Successful Web Design: Relative Importance and Recommendations for Effectiveness
http://www.allbusiness.com/marketing-advertising/product-positioning/3878710-1.html
http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2004/nt_2004_02_02_ms.htm
http://www.layoutgalaxy.com/html/htmnewletter7-page1.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0
2 comments:
The ICAEW website does contain features such as Blogs, WIKI and RSS Feeds as shown in ION (ICAEW Online Network): http://www.ion.icaew.com/MoorgatePlace/. This highlights a problem in the website's layout and navigation.
Thanks, I didn't notice it because I couldn't find it, can't change it now though!
Post a Comment