Judging Commercial Web Sites

by Chuck Davis, Webmaster
PeachWare Software (award program closed)
15 September 2001

As a web site evaluator, I have often asked myself, "Is it fair to hold a commercial site to a higher standard than a personal site?" While this might seem to be a double standard to some, the fact remains that corporations hire professional web designers to design and promote their sites. These costs are absorbed by their advertising and marketing budgets.

In this article I will explain why you should hold commercial sites to a higher standard and explore some of the areas of commercial web sites that bear closer inspection while doing a site evaluation.

Why Be So Hard?

Do you hold professional sports teams to a higher standard of performance than your local inter mural teams? I would hazard a guess that you do. Companies often pay big money to have a professional designer or staff member build the site for them, so you should consider the site to be a professional product and judge it to the standard that is implied by the word professional.

The best mindset to assume when evaluating a commercial site is that of a customer. If you place yourself in the customer's shoes instead of an evaluator's shoes you will see things in a totally different light. Does the site seem reputable? Did you learn enough about the product to be sure it is what you want? If you were interested in the product would you be able to complete the transaction comfortably without the fear of being ripped off? If the answer to any of these questions is "no," then there is a problem with the site.

Hypocritical?

Some might think that it is hypocritical to have a second standard for commercial web sites, but if you post additional criteria points for commercial sites it isn't. Many programs have varying criteria for different types of sites. Common examples are design and other special awards offered as a subset of the main award.

Remember that commercial sites have a different purpose than personal sites and need extra scrutiny in areas that are not applicable to personal sites. Taking a little extra time while developing your criteria will ensure that commercial sites that receive your award will meet a high standard and increase the value, credibility, and stature of your award.

Privacy

A commercial site should have a clearly written and easily available policy on privacy. The site should let you know what information they are collecting and what they do with it! If you have to use the site search feature or site map to find it, they have buried the privacy policy too deep.

A new concern among surfers is the use of spy ware plug ins. Spy ware plug ins report back to other servers with your browsing habits and have become a major privacy concern to many. A complete privacy policy should cover the use of cookies and plug ins. If it does not, then there is either a lack of thoroughness or an attempt to gloss over those specific privacy issues.

If the privacy policy falls in either of these categories you need to carefully scrutinize it before continuing your evaluation. You might find a nasty surprise! If the site has a mailing list, it should be an opt-in mailing list. Opt-out mailing lists are a sure sign of spamming. Nobody wants more junk mail.

Speed

Commercial sites have to cater to a wide range of users. Some folks have high-speed access, but the majority of Internet users still use dial up connections. If a site does not load quickly enough, most folks will just surf on to another site. If the site requires high bandwidth, providing a low-bandwidth or text only version is definitely a check in the plus column. Sites that require a 5 MB download for the flash intro without providing a link directly into the site will alienate most dialup users within seconds.

You can use several different methods to determine loading speed, but calculating the load speed based on file weights makes the evaluation fair and not biased based on network traffic at the time of the evaluation. There are several free services and tools that provide this service. NetMechanic does a fine job and will even show you load times for different connection rates.

Navigation

Commercial sites are trying to sell you something. If you can't find it the designer has failed in his (or her) primary goal. A clearly defined navigation system that returns well-formed pages of HTML is a must. The larger a site becomes, the more ungainly the navigation becomes. A well-designed commercial site will attempt to separate content into categories for easier navigation. The trick is in knowing how many categories are too many! Site map and site search features are definite plusses in the navigation category.

Strange icons and indecipherable links are a great way to lose sales! This is called "Mystery Meat" navigation and should be heavily penalized. Care should be taken to ensure links are contrasting against the page backgrounds and the text is readable without having to squint or guess at their content. Should I even mention that 404 errors are a no-no on commercial sites?

Compatibility

Although the vast majority of surfers use Internet Explorer, there is still a significant percentage of Netscape users out there. Designing a site that will not function properly in Netscape is like cutting off your nose to spite your face. Professional designers should practice careful coding techniques to insure the message can be seen in at least the top two browsers in use today. If the site doesn't load in Netscape there is ample reason to believe that the site was not carefully designed.

Another major error is designing a site that does not scale well to most resolutions. If a site can only be viewed at 18500*12500 on a wide screen projection TV, they have just alienated the customers that are browsing in an older computer with a less capable video card and monitor. A common and acceptable practice is to design for 800*600 and carefully code so that the page displays well at larger resolutions.

Scripting

Commercial sites should never, ever have script errors! If they use scripts and interactive databases, there is nothing worse than receiving a script error. They are annoying and can often cause your browser to crash. Hackers can use script errors to exploit the web server operating system. This can jeopardize the security of your personal information if the error occurs on a secure ordering page!

Secure ordering is a must for a site that makes sales online. There is absolutely no excuse for insecure ordering. There are many services that will set up a shopping cart or provide a secure ordering mechanism, so if a site has no secure ordering mechanism for online transactions it should be heavily penalized. Would you put your money in a bank that didn't even have a vault?

Professionalism

This starts from the opening page and continues through every page visited. A professional look is hard to define, but you will know it when you see it! Obvious no-nos are spelling errors, HTML tags that show up on the page, broken images, and multi colored or all centered text. Things that distract the eye take away from the message being presented. Professionally designed commercial sites are rarely hosted on free servers! After all, would you want to place an order at a web site hosted at http://somefreeserver.com/someshadyproduct?

Another key point about a professional image is contact information. Without a way to make contact, surfers get an uneasy feeling. An 800 number is great, but at a minimum there should be a dedicated email address for inquiries. Contact forms, forums, and other means of contacting the company will make customers happy and build customer loyalty. A question or concern unanswered can be a sale lost.

Some Notes About Design

You will notice that many commercial sites have a very plain look. In most cases you will find that this is not due to corporate conservatism. The main reason most commercial sites are very plain is so they can focus the attention on the products and information rather than overwhelm you with design elements.

Another reason many commercial sites are plain is comfort. Companies want to place their customers at ease and project an image of reliability. A cleanly laid out, conservatively designed site gives the impression of solidity. Flashy design is great, but in the end most customers buy based on instinct. And instinct says go with something safe.

At a minimum, the design should be functional and present the information in a logical fashion. Be especially critical of web design firms. Those sites that tout themselves as designers should be carefully scrutinized for errors. After all, if there are errors on their own sites, it stands to reason there are errors on their customers' sites.

In Closing

These are just a few points you might want to consider when evaluating commercial sites. You can see there are very specific areas that bear closer inspection and could be the basis for expanded criteria points in your award program. I hope that these points have made you think about some of the subtle and not so subtle differences in evaluating commercial web sites.

Happy evaluating!