Vividence Reveals the Most Common Mistakes in Web Site Design

[June 11th 2001]

While Web design and usability have made significant strides, leading e-commerce Web sites are still failing to deliver the user experience their customers expect, according to a new Vividence e-commerce study entitled, "Tangled Web 2001." Developed and conducted by Vividence, the study evaluated results from over 13,000 panelists completing tasks on 69 Web sites including Fortune 1000, Internet 250 and B2B 40 companies.

The Vividence study found the following to be the most common problems with the 69 e-commerce Web sites included in the Tangled Web study:

• 53% had poorly organized search results: Common mistakes included erroneous results, items not ranked in order of fit to their search results and too many results.

• 32% had poor information architecture: Many of the sites displayed poor information architecture through their product and content organization on their Web sites. Errors included poor grouping of information, inconsistent elements within a group and random ordering of elements.

• 32% suffered from slow performance: Home pages tended to be the largest offender due to poor design and execution.

• 27% had cluttered home pages: Poor information architecture, a failure to communicate the value proposition and failing to engage customers were common flaws found in cluttered home pages.

• 25% had problems with confusing labels: While navigating sites for the study, panelists often complained of confusing labels as a frequent mistake of Web sites. These included the use of marketing terminology and technology and industry jargon.

• 15% of Web sites had problems with invasive registration: With the recent emphasis on privacy issues, invasive registration processes also ranked high on the list of consumer complaints. Registration required for use, asking for too much information and requests for unnecessary information were all commonly cited as problem areas for Web sites included in the study.

• 13% had difficulties with inconsistent navigation: Findings from the study also indicated inconsistent navigation was a problem area for Web sites. Unscalable designs, random links and poor transitions between company divisions all contributed to the overall inconsistent navigation on the sites.

"With the Internet growing and reaching thousands of new users every day, it becomes paramount for Web-based businesses to understand and improve the online customer experience," said Andy Cargile, Director of Customer Experience Architecture, Vividence. "This study demonstrates that the customer experience has plenty of room for improvement -- many of the mistakes being made are fundamental in nature, and Web designers should be moving beyond these common errors to improve their customer conversion and retention rates as well as the overall customer experience."

Links
Vividence		http://www.vividence.com