Don’t get me wrong. I love my church, which has been recently renamed Austin Ridge Bible Church from Westlake Bible Church. Check out the sermon if you are curious to learn about the name change (forward to 10:39 in the 38 minute video). Seeing Brad Thomas speak has been the most spiritually challenging and rewarding experience of my life. Now, along with the name change came a brand new web site for Austin Ridge. I think the look and feel of the new site looks GREAT:
So the site looks really smooth - however, from a task-driven usability perspective, I have quickly found issues with the site’s information architecture.
For example, TASK ONE: I had a recent need to send a friend a video of a recent sermon. The old site had a “sermons” routing component on the home page making it very intuitive and easy to locate. Excited to use the new site, I went hunting for “sermons.” I didn’t find sermons in the primary navigation across the top and looked within the main body of the site with no luck. After experimenting with some of the links, I noticed the new site has the sermons listed under “Video & Audio” at the bottom of the home page, hidden below the fold. I feel confident others looking for previous sermons are thinking of a trigger word like “sermon” not “Video & Audio.” I also found when you get into the “Video & Audio” section, the Video Gallery section’s secondary navigation changes as you drill down creating a little disorientation, making it more challenging to find the right content.
TASK TWO: I wanted to send a friend the contact information of one of the staff members. Following the defacto standard on most sites, I clicked on “About - Who We are” thinking I would find a listing of staff members. Nope. I realized after hunting around I needed to use the links at the bottom of the home page under the fold. I noticed “Our Staff and Elders” and found the staff person I was looking for. I also realized the old site gave detail pages for each staff member so you could easily forward the address for the staff member. The staff are all one scrolling page with the new site. I then had to work a little harder and comment saying scroll down to the middle of the page to find the person I recommended - a slight downgrade from each having their own detail page.
So what is the big deal if a visitor can’t immediately find the exact content they are looking for? It is a HUGE deal. The web is like a TV with a trillion channels. Any distraction, “noise” or frustration can turn the level of interest a visitor has to zero in nanoseconds causing a portion of visitors to leave and with some to never return.
Being the Managing Principal of White Lion, I felt compelled to find out who designed the site. I noticed the web firm specializing in affordable web site templates at a low upfront and monthly cost. The whole experience made me think about how my sales team has seen lower priced template-type competitors in the marketplace as of late. As contrasted with a template or off-the-shelf system, White Lion uses powerful, open-source software with a highly custom approach producing a clean, professional and memorable look and feel matched with easy to administer content management systems. Think of a custom tailored suit designed to fit perfect and last.
Taking a step back I was listening to Business Week’s “Innovation of the Week” podcast.
A person being interviewed talked about the cost to integrate SAP’s Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software for larger companies. He explained the high costs (in the millions) to license SAP and then the millions to get a third party to implement the software. Then the most expensive part is having to change existing business process to fit the rigidity of SAP (more millions in hard and soft costs). I am writing all of this not to slam Austin Ridge’s site. Like the SAP example, I am pointing out how many off-the-shelf or templated sites force content to be organized and displayed in a certain way which may not be intuitive to the audience. I feel the Austin Ride content was forced into content buckets as compared to the content driving the naming and placement within the site.
Now I will be taking action and offering White Lion’s services if Austin Ridge ever considers changing the current web site. I also hope if you are in the market for a custom web site or web application project you give some serious consideration to the freedom my team has with taking a custom approach. The custom approach does cost more. At the same time, you are given nanoseconds to make a great first impression. Since content is what drives visitors to your site, we recommend you are hyper-sensitive in making the experience as fluid and as intuitive as possible. So contact our friendly and highly experienced sales team to help optimize your next web design project.
Steve C. Kahle
Managing Principal
White Lion Internet Agency