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Website Report
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Website Report for Porthuges Ltd
October 2010
2010
UK Imports Ltd Colin Wiseman-Brown BSc (hons)
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Terms of reference Requested by: Ian Attard Portughes
Copies to: Ian Attard Portughes
Researched and compiled by: Colin Wiseman-Brown
Date: October 2010
Disclaimer:-
The writer has no connection with either Portughes Ltd or NIU or any employee of either company.
Nor has the writer seen or been made aware of any of the following:
Quotation for development work
Design brief
Business analysis report
Specification for the site
Maintenance Schedules
Correspondence between the two companies
This report is purely consultative, written without intent to tender for any works, nor promote any web design company.
This report was written to address the following areas:
Overall design and aesthetics
Website functionality
Navigation
Business effectiveness
Due to the lack of available web statistical data and contractual information between developer and client, only passing reference is made with regard to these item.
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Overall Impressions
The home page should be the portal into the business and the impression it creates, can often be a success or failure factor, deciding whether customers feel confident enough to do business with you. Therefore, this page is the most important on the site and should be designed with care. Thought should not be just given to the target audience but the skill needed to navigate it, the use of jargon and the hardware required to view it correctly. There are many users in Malta still using 800x600 resolution, Linux desktops and netbooks that are not capable of running Flash. The Flash video is not the best choice of image; it is more suited to a dating or recruitment agency than a dry cleaners. The decision to use Flash is of course a personal one but it is a medium that should be used sparingly (if at all) and must always add value to the site. In this instance, it is hard to see the purpose of the video when a simple graphic would have sufficed much better. The Portughes brand is not a retail product that is seen on every shop shelf; the brand is synonymous with the vehicle livery that is seen in every town in Malta. Therefore, it is logical that this connection be reinforced on the website. CSQM and ISO 9001:2000 certification is included in the video but a prospective customer has to find the relevance of this on the 'about us' page; why? International standards are an important confidence booster for customers, why not explain their meaning and significance with a prominent home page link? At the top of the page there are five icons/graphics that are the main hyperlinks i.e. 'home', 'laundry basket', 'your account', 'quick booking' and 'contact us'. Although the graphics represent laundry symbols, they have little connection to the links themselves. Why was a coat hanger chosen to symbolize 'contact us' or a clothing peg for 'your account' ? Graphics used as hyperlinks should always be representative of the topic not random clipart. The telephone number, which is the main contact point for customers, is placed vertically on the top left hand side; this needs to be in a more prominent position. The various prices are accessed from a panel on the left hand side containing a series of text hyperlinks. Each link navigates to a page detailing prices for individual items categorised by the link text. The user can select individual items and add them to the laundry basket The prices are clearly displayed and easy to select with a useful feature of being able to displays all the categories together.
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The prices pages would be better displayed in a less cluttered style. They are presently surrounded by too much information which is very distracting to the user. The services are also displayed in a Flash video which adds no value whatsoever to the site and is rather pointless. The prices have mistakenly been incorporated within the video which means unnecessary expense when prices are reviewed. Although it may appear to be a gimmick, it is worth asking the question: what purpose do the links to YouTube and Facebook etc serve? They are just more screen clutter and should be removed. Apart from screen clutter, they appear to make the site disjointed and there is a danger that users will go the YouTube and stay there browsing other companies video content. There are for instance, videos on the Internet about saving money on dry cleaning (http://video.foxnews.com/v/3989042/how-to-save-money-on-dry-cleaning/). It is never a good idea to direct users away from your site! At the bottom of the page is another Flash video that once again, adds no value to the site. Alongside the bottom video is the designer's logo/link. Unless this is providing advertising revenue, it should be removed for the same reasons that the YouTube /Facebook links should be removed. The centre of the page contains too much white space which gives it an unfinished look. With a more thoughtful design, the whole home page could be easily displayed without the need for scrolling. Every page is a near clone of the home page, complete with irritating videos that distract the user from absorbing the information the site is meant to convey. What is the point of constantly repeating information on every page, at the cost of overpowering the information. This is a common practice on many but that is no reason to make the same error on this site.
The 'about us' page gives spare information and contains errors.
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Conclusions: The main question we should ask when considering a website is: 'why do we need one?' Is it because everyone else has one or conversely because no one else has one and we want to be first? On the other hand, it could be for a more appropriate reason: 'we wish to promote our business to generate more revenue'. If the latter was the case with Portughes, has it been successful at achieving these goals? With every other form of advertising this question could very easily be answered because simple sets of metrics have been devised to measure the success rate of the advertising investment. How has the success of this site been measured? How is the customer experience being measured? The following should be available to the Portughes management on a monthly basis: site hit rates bouncing statistics page hit/duration rates
All of which should offer data that can be processed into strategically information. In the opinion of the writer, the Portughes website goes a long way from promoting the company's strengths, which are: customer services reliability friendly service experience innovation
The majority of companies in Malta offer excruciatingly bad customer service; in contrast to this Portughes offer customer services that are the equal to any European company. Where is this reflected in the website? As previously pointed out in the 'terms of reference': the writer has not seen the business analysis report that is usually created by the developer prior to commencing construction of the website. The purpose of which is the establish the juxtaposition of the design with the business criteria. The colour scheme is unrepresentative of the company's brand and is overpowering. The contrast with the open areas give the site an unfinished appearance. This colour scheme may be suitable for a boutique but not for Portughes; as previously mentioned, the distinct trademark of Portughes is the vehicle livery. The main navigation icons are inappropriate for the links and appear to be stuck on as an afterthought. Why a coat hanger was chosen to represent 'contact us' and a clothes peg for 'your account' remains with the designer.
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This website has been tested with W3C and WDG (see appendix c/d) and hundreds of errors have been detected in the HTML and JAVASCRIPT code. Whilst errors of this nature are quite common, It does indicate a high level of non-conformity. This means that some browsers will not show the site correctly (see appendix b). Although these are extreme examples, it does demonstrate the need to write compliant code. More of these example can be seen at webshot.org.
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Recommendations: The Flash movies should be scrapped and replaced by appropriate graphics. A proper logo should be designed that is in keeping with the Portughes image and incorporate the established brand that people are familiar with in Malta. The Arena site is very successful in achieving this. Select proper icons that are more representative of the link (Snowhite). The 'about us' page, perhaps should be called 'why use Portughes? to create greater impact'. Thousands of websites contain the same stock pages; be refreshingly different. Enfranchise staff by including photos and profiles; customers are seldom impressed by the use of models! It is also a good motivating factor for staff and improves customer confidence; 'companies that are seen to value their staff usually value customers'. Concentrate on why customers should use Portughes. Shout about the ISO standards and ensure that every visitor understands the significance of the professionalism on offer at Portughes. Remove all links to other sites including the developers (unless they are willing to pay for the advertising). Include a mission statement that separates Portughes from the rest. Develop a simple script that allows customers to upload comments. It is important not to delete negative comments, every business gets the odd complaint and negative comments provide an opportunity to demonstrate the effectiveness of your customer services. This strategy has served Amazon very well indeed. Finally, there is the issue of online discount. This type of discount can sometimes become a double edged sword. Often customers get annoyed at having to pay more than a neighbour for the same service just because they haven't got Internet access. Currys, the UK's largest electrical retailer offered good discount for online purchases but soon found they alienating customers who purchased goods from the store who believed they were being overcharged; they have now restricted this practice. If you wish to use an incentive, perhaps you could enter each person who places an online order into a prize draw; that seldom offends anyone.
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Appendix a Laundry websites in Malta. E-business is really in its infancy in Malta and largely in the hands of young designers who are more interested in displaying their design talents than gaining an understanding of their client's commercial interests. This is certainly true in the case of two of the three laundry websites listed below. ; however two of them have good ideas that could be usefully incorporated in a new site. The obsession to use Flash at every possible opportunity is globally receding; unfortunately this trend has not yet reached Malta. In the case of Arena, http://www.arenalaundry.com/index.html the video is relevant, unobtrusive, adds value to the site and is clearly identifiable with the company trademark image. Why it was felt necessary to display the time and date, will have to remain a mystery! The telephone number is clearly displayed. The links are prominently displayed and the icons relevant but the rest of the site is poorly designed. In high resolution the text is unreadable because the font size is tiny and the text colour is light grey colour on a white background. Swan http://www.corinthiacorporate.com/cphcl/content.aspx?id=152149 site is not worth discussing, other than to say: if you have more than one business activity, keep them separate. Snowhite http://www.snowhitelaundry.com/snowhite/home.aspx. Whether this site is in keeping with the company brand, the writer is unable to comment upon, as he is not familiar with the company. Take away the silly videos and this would be a well designed site. The navigation is clear and appropriate with a well balanced colour scheme. Whilst, all the main links are displayed on the homepage, the designers have managed to give it an uncluttered clarity that is easy on the eye. Unfortunately, the same can't be said of the content. This is generally poor and requires a lot of work to make this an effective website. A few international websites to browse. Some good, some bad but all have some salient feature. http://drycleanusa.com/ http://www.123cleaners.com/Dry-Cleaning/ http://www.villagedrycleaners.com/ http://www.butlerz.co.uk/Prices.htm http://www.connoisseurdrycleaners.co.uk/ http://www.dryklean.co.uk/index.html
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Appendix b (Screen Shots)
Windows Explorer 64bit Version (Windows 7)
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Navigator 9.0.0.6 / Windows XP
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Konqueror 4.4 / Ubuntu 9.10
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Links 2.2
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Epiphany 2.30.2 / Ubuntu 9.10
