Archive for the ‘Website Design’ Category

The latest major change: the bottom half of the homepage now includes links to the brand pages, from which you can get to a page where all the site’s informaton for a specific model is either displayed or directly linked to. This should make it easier for people seeking information on a single model.

As part of this change, “reviews” and “specs” now each have their own button in the nav.

Those model pages can also be accessed by clicking on the model’s name elsewhere on the site, including an added “breadcrumb” on the Fuel Economy, Repair History, and “Why (Not) This Car?” pages.

Is any of this helping? As always, I’ve been receiving virtually no actionable feedback.

People tell me the site could be easier to use. A more thorough redesign is coming, but in the short term I’ve made some tweaks, and they seem to be helping.

1. Reduced wordcount on the home page and the main reliability page.

2. Removed some extraneous design elements.

3. Placed text about the on-site surveys below the log in, so the latter is now above the fold even on low-res displays.

4. Added car photos (randomly generated, so no model gets favored) and the flash banner to more pages.

Nothing fancy. But the rate at which people are joining has jumped, so even these tweaks appear to be effective.

My top priority, by a wide margin, is growing the panel to a point where TrueDelta can provide solid reliability information on all popular models. This was a major reason I started this blog, because a few people suggested it would make the site more attractive to potential members.

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Many people continue to find the site difficult to use. So based on one member’s advice (with which the site’s designer concurred) I read Steve Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think, a classic in the website usability genre. It’s a quick read, and I picked up some useful tips. I’ve spent the last couple of days improving the organization of the site and the layout of various pages. What do you think?

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I’ve had a few people complain that the site is confusing, and while I’ve certainly felt their pain I’ve been at a loss concerning what to do about it.

Then last night I received an email that gave me a helpful clue: it’s too hard to figure out which links lead to the surveys, and which lead to the results of the surveys. I could actually feel the proverbial light bulb hovering just above my head as it lit up.

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I’ve been charged a few times with being biased against domestic cars simply based on the cars depicted in the header: an Acura TL, a Kia Sportage, and a Honda Odyssey. I suppose an explanation of how these cars were selected is long overdue.

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I’m always asking for feedback on the site’s design. Responses generally fall into two groups:

1. Couldn’t be simpler

2. Couldn’t be more confusing

Being the sort of person I am, I focus on the latter group. Which is usually a group of two or three, out of over 8,000 members, but I assume that for every person who speaks up there are another 99 with the same experience, just not speaking up.

These two or three people tell me that they cannot find what they are looking for when they come to the site, that they often find themselves going in circles, that they cannot figure out how to get their member number, and so forth.

This confusion confuses me, since everything is spelled out.

A common complaint has been that the survey results are impossible to find. In the most recent case, I responded that there are two ways to get to the results:

1. Sign in, then click on the “Reliability” tab

2. Click on the link to the results in the Reliability box on the home page

The response: he’d never been given a password, so he signed in as “Guest,” and the tab didn’t take him to the results. He didn’t try Alternative #2, perhaps because he didn’t read beyond Alternative #1 in the email. And he didn’t see the instructions for how to obtain his member number because…well I don’t really know why. These instructions are immediately above the sign in form. This person seemed very intelligent in his emails; he just wasn’t going to do any reading of complete sentences, almost as a matter of principle.

What to do? Is it possible to design the site such that even people who don’t read the various instructions and explanations can navigate and use it easily? Can I communicate things that must be communicated–like the research process–in a handful of words?

If I could achieve this, then the site would be better for all users, even those willing to read. But at some point the usefulness of the site and the quality of the research results would begin to suffer. So: seek to redesign the site for non-readers, or narrow the focus to those looking for depth of information? There are very likely more people in the former group, but the latter group will get more out of the site and will provide higher quality survey responses.

I don’t have an answer at this point.

This morning’s article over at The Truth About Cars discusses the poor state of automotive website design based on an interview with a firm that studies it. I agree that most manufacturer sites are poorly designed. But I’m not sure I agree with the specific sites singled out.

For example, MINI’s site is mentioned as one of the best. Yes, it’s flashy and the look and feel fit the brand’s intended image. But as a source of information it’s frustrating. Conversely, they criticize BMW’s site, which I’ve often found useful. Especially the ability to download the brand’s thorough brochures in PDF format.

Worst of all, for me, are the Chrysler, Dodge, and Jeep sites. Seek information on standard features, and you’ll find a long (yet still incomplete) list of features with no subheadings and no readily evident mode of organization. Too many of the features are of limited, if any, relevance.

For example, here are a few of the standard features listed for the Grand Cherokee:

–accent-color license plate brow (so?)
–center high-mount stop lamp (on every car by low)
–enhanced accident response system (which is?)
–floor carpet (a rarity, I know)
–”Jeep” badge
–halogen headlamps (on every car without HIDs)
–warning chime (warning of what?)
–door trim panel (again, good to hear that one is standard)

Of course, any such evaluation depends on what one is seeking to do when visiting these sites. Just information? Entertainment? The spirit of the brand?

I don’t have all of the answers here, far from it. People continue to tell me that TrueDelta is poorly organized and too hard to navigate. It seems simple and logical to me, but then I’m the one who designed it.

So, if you have any insights into how I might improve this site’s organization and navigation, or simply into what people are looking for when they visit, please do share them with me. A number of people have already done this, and the site has improved as a result. Thanks.