kate's infrastructure

Honestly it’s not like I held high hopes for a JB Hi-Fi online store.  Their brand started out a little like those “DOORS DOORS DOORS” ads.  Not subtle or carefully crafted.  Even still, I was on the lookout for stuff they sell, so wandered innocently to digitalhome.com.au, and quickly realised from the subtle professional branding* that this was a store I recognised.

My argument in this case is not due to their woefully inept internet presence, or their 1998-era site design, its that it just doesn’t work.

Screenshot from 11/04/2009 19:18:

Failure is simple here.

1. Mouse-over menus – ok, so it can work, but this is a pretty lame attempt at usability.  Maybe a better implementation of the same idea wouldn’t look so 1998
2. Drop-down menu – If they’re going to be so ineffective, it should really give me an alternative method of accessing the content
3. Obnoxious ad – Sure, highlight your specials, but maybe in a way that it doesn’t obscure key content and prevent me from getting to ANYTHING IM INTERESTED IN;

Poor attempt all round, I wont be shopping at JB online.

By the way, there are Australian tech companies that have an exceptional online presence – Dick Smith is the best example.  The site is professional, has live stock info, and is all about win.  But as it’s not failweb, I can’t focus on it in this post.

*sarcasm, just for the record.

My emerging obsession with Android powered phones, coupled with Kogan’s failure to deliver on their promised handset means I have to spend my days at the Optus site fawning over their slightly ugly and dated HTC dream (equiv. to the T-mobile G1 launched in the USA).  I hate the handset design, but I do want a physical keyboard and a dose of awesomeness, so this will be my phone.

Long story short, the Optus website experience seems surprisingly amateur.  I’m a loooong time Vodafone user, so maybe I’m just used to something a little more.  The Optus website just screams to me 1990s SME.  I find this a little astounding for what is basically a technology company.

The first thing is that the front page of the site adds nothing to either the existing or potentially future customer.  There’s very little visible content and yet it is noticeably slow to load.  This appears to be a fact known to the developers as they have a prompt which will sometimes appear explaining that the site is still loading and offering alternative shortcuts.  Maybe a site with a bit more content OR a bit less bloat would be more sensible (i.e. don’t make me wait for nothing).

The second (and more infuriating thing) is this:

Yes, I understand the role of maintaining the user session, and I can understand being a developer who relies on a session to maintain something meaningful about the user.  The thing here is, I’d done nothing aside from stare at the HTC dream pictures.  No login, no transaction.  Nothing.  Maybe the tab was open for a while when I was doing other stuff, but really, what kind of useful information did my session contain?  And is sessions, and making users abundantly aware of them really the right direction? 

Failsite aside, I should be an Optus customer later this week all going to plan.  I guess that doesn’t exactly give any incentive for update then does it?

I’m not much of a fan of the splash page as a general rule.  I understand that the location-specific content presented to me can be improved if the site knows where I’m from, but I’d prefer not to tell them before I’m shown any useful or meaningful content whatsoever.  The fact that this seemingly unessential splash page simply doesn’t function using Google Chrome suggests that some customers may be lost to competitors at this first hurdle.  I had to fall back to using Firefox to get through the initial puzzle.

A better design for me would be to:

• Provide an initial generic site, highlighting some features or specials;
• Don’t ask me to confirm language and then only offer me a single option;
• Guess my location based on my IP address, and;
• Give me the opportunity to correct my location if you’ve guessed wrong;

Regardless of how you actually achieve this, we must then consider what you can do with this new found location and language info.  Ignoring this info (which is initially presented as a mandatory step) is a little stupid.  Why ask me my country and language if you don’t intend to show me information actually tailored to that?  I understand the necessity of language but do not understand why you would ask my country and then not default to my local airports or currency.

Website gripes aside, it seems cheap.

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