The Marketing Observer

New Times website - a usability disaster?

Out of mere interest, as I really doubt I will become a subscriber, I signed up for the new Times website trial. Remember, this is the site that people will be forced to pay for in a month or so.

The instantaneous reaction to the new site is that it is a substantial retrograde step, although there is a clear attempt to bring the online branding and "look n feel" closer together. Using serif fonts for the page text as well as the titles flies in the face of received web wisdom. The wrapping and the line spacing is also unhelpful for readability.

Furthermore, the colours are far less attractive and monochrome which will make usability poor.

The navigation is changed too. The structure is radically different and presumably replicates the paper version. Breadcrumbs have been removed which makes locating your position in the site harder.

Pages on the current free website accommodate the full length of an article - the new site makes users click through to subsequent pages just to finish reading the same article.

All-in-all it will be fascinating to discover how the Times justifies all of these changes. They make the website far harder to use, particularly for someone who isn't intimately familiar with the paper version - ie the vast majority!

#fail

What is amazing is that the content is substantially different on the homepage and that the text sub-headings are being re-edited and different images are being used. The sheer workload increase that this entails is extraordinary if replicated across the entire site.

Barclays have almost annoyed me enough to overcome interia

Generally I think that Barclays have a very good online banking system.It features real time updates and you can normally carry out pretty much any action you need in order to service one's account.However, they seem to have been sucked in by the web security brigade and as a result, yesterday, it was easier for me to walk to my local branch and talk to someone than to try and "self-service".

I tried to send some money to another account and I am now no longer able to do this without PINsentry. This odious device will not fit into any pocket easily and certainly not into my wallet.I already have a membership number, a PIN and a password check to get into the account so this does seem rather over the top to me.

Furthermore the bank has completely failed to communicate this change in policy to its account holders as far as I am aware.When I eventually got through to someone on the phone I could barely understand them as they could not speak English coherently and was told that they could not talk to me because I did not know the exact date of a standing order (end of the month wasn't accurate enough). It was suggested I ring back when I had a statement in front of me! So no online banking with Barclays from me anymore then. A 5 minute walk to the branch producer a result quickly.

What my investigations did reveal was a complete lack of analysis of the usability or user experience of online banking in the UK - there appear to be no studies paid or otherwise that I could find on Google. Does anyone know of a study? I do know for example that the First Direct system works well but doesn't give you the ability to name your accounts.

Thoughts?

Internet Retailing event

I attended this event yesterday.

Surprised by the non-appearance by certain ecommerce platform providers.

For example where was Venda?

I saw guys from Portaltech, CSI, E-in-B, Snow Valley to name but a few but no sign of the "market leaders".

Are they too busy?