The Mequoda Website Design Scorecard has been used to critique hundreds of websites over the last five years, 76 of which we’ve documented. We decided recently to dust off the ol’ scorecard and use it to reevaluate Computerworld.com, a site we originally gave an overall score of a B in May of 2005.

Nearly 5 years later, how has their site improved? According to our review, this B2B site catering to IT professionals has changed significantly, earning a score today of A-.

Computerworld Website Design Scorecard

Computerworld.com’s Mequoda Scorecard

1. Strategic Intent – B

Computerworld, (CW) is one of the oldest and most respected publications from IDG, with a target audience of Senior IT management at mid-to-large size companies.

What is the strategic goal of a free content B2B website such as Computerworld? There are several answers, here are just a few:

1. Content. Readers expect the same content online as off, and to find everything on a given subject, quickly and easily. They want consistency with the brand they have known to rely on. If you fail in any of these areas you’re going to lose brand loyalty.
2. Conversions/Data Acquisition. Advertising rates are not just a simple volume calculation, they depend on the quality of the publication’s readership. The more information the publisher has, the better they can maximize their pricing strategy. The more users who subscribe to Computerworld newsletters, the more attractive they are to potential advertisers.
3. Advertising Inventory. Deeper content and wider distribution means more readers and more inventory. Advertisements are key to bringing in revenue.
4. Premium Content. Content that is offered on a subscription basis.

Computerworld manages all the above goals pretty well except for the last one, Premium Content. The strategy toward print subscriptions has changed as expected yet it’s still on the site in an almost hidden place. The goal here is not clear and cannot be achieved because of its lack of clarity.

We would have expected to see Floaters and OFIE’s consistently marketing toward an unknown user. A rotating Ad for newsletter signup appears periodically above the nameplate but should be consistently displayed.

Furthermore, additional conversion architecture is needed above the fold. This includes:

ComputerWorld Homepage

2. Content Webification – A

Since our last review of Computerworld, the website has clearly moved beyond its old print media roots and embraced webification. Here’s the quick list of the web tools available.

• Podcast. Free bimonthly podcasts
• IT Job. A job search site that allows searching by title, skills, location, and company
• Search. This can be done in multiple ways:  Topic or Sponsor or Industry
• Webcasts. Upcoming and on-demand are viewable by registering on the site

In general, webification of the site is in-line with established standards. There’s nothing risky here, but they do display a good solid implementation of expected web features.

3. Relationship Building – C

Here is an area that could use some improvement. The main goals of the site should be a conversion to signup and an increase in email newsletter registrations. The site lacks in offering free products while soliciting signups. On the positive side, selectivity is offered on multiple newsletters types.

4. Community Building – A

Blogs and Shark Bait. Shark Bait is the place to post your  experiences about all things IT. It uses cutesy Sharks symbols to rate others’ experiences, and really promotes the interactive user experience.

Recent comments are prominently displayed in the right navigation to entice the reader to follow the happenings of the site.

Article pages show the number of comments and ratings on posts to help users while browsing and searching articles.

Blogs support feeds to follow favorite bloggers.

These sections are well designed so it’s easy to give them an A.

5. Persistent Navigation – A

The main navigation stays consistent throughout the site and the left navigation stays consistent across pages as well. There do not appear to be any issues here. This navigation allows for easy expansion to view topics, subtopics and industries.

6. Task Depth -B

Our tasks to undertake were to:

1. Browse Headline. The homepage is chock full of easy to read clickable headlines.
2. Search for a specific keyword. Google custom search is used throughout the site.
3. 
   
   

   ComputerWorld Newsletter signup

   Signup. The newsletter signup is found below the left hand navigation. It needs to be moved up higher on page. Once it’s found, the user’s experience is adequate with only a few required fields to gather necessary data for advertisers.

4. Subscribe. So where is the premium content? Oh, there it is at the end of a long list in the left navigation “Print Subscriptions”. Are they trying to hide it? Maybe since they are moving to a digital format, the prominence of the print newsletter link is less important, but it’s unclear.

Because of the confusion on the premium task (subscribe to magazine), they can only be given a “B” on task depth.

7. Affordance – A

The content navigation used underlined titles and bulleted items, which are good standards. Additional navigation was also clear. The grade is easily an “A” here.

8. Labeling and Language – A

There is some use of labels specific to Computerworld, such as “Tricks of the Trade” or “SharkBait,” which build the brand to keep the reader returning. The IT audience uses a large volume of specific labels for their constantly changing industry. These are represented on the site, which is audience appropriate. The audience will appreciate a publication that speaks their language.

9. Readability (Content Density) – A

The column width changes as your eyes move down the page  due to a centered ad block. This is not recommended but it works for this ad driven site. Hopefully they have tested this and know it works.

The only other drawback is that the font is small and they don’t seem to have a text resizing option. Fixing this would appeal to  the aging IT population since this publication has been around for 40 years and the audience is not all youngsters.

10. Organization – B

The upper quadrant of the website should have all four primary tasks. These need to draw attention to the “Subscribe” or “Print Subscriptions” sections. The premium content section is in transition but that’s not reason to delegate it to the bottom of the navigation list. They should remove it or make the intent more clear.

Another area that lost them points is the “Free signup”. A better use of this section would include an upsell.

11. Content Freshness – A

Knowing what’s going on as soon as it happens is important to industry execs. Updating the latest headlines several times a day, five days a week is essential, and for doing this Computerworld gets an A.

12. Load Time – A

Testing on a variety of analyzers shows the site’s load time to be between 1 and 1.5 seconds. No complaints with those statistics here.

Additionally, there is not an overuse of graphics or flash weighing down the site.

13. Aesthetics – A

Computerworld gets an A. It matches the audience perfectly.

This site is clean, clear and professional. It makes a good use of the colors gold and navy. The newsletters however might use some redesign. I assume the purpose of all text is to display on mobile devices, but the content is just a long text list.

14. Brand Preference – A

The site supports the print brand well. There is extensive editorial content available, and the strategic tasks we listed in the first section are attended to.

Conclusion

Computerworld has done an excellent job of improving the site since our last review. They address areas such as Navigation, Content Density, Relationship Building and Organization. However they lose key points on Task Depth for premium content as their print subscription link just causes confusion. It seems like an afterthought to them and if that is no longer their direction they should remove it.

Overall, a 3.7 score leaves them some room for improvement but overall, they are doing a great job.

In order to compete with travel agencies and agents, travel information publishers, who traditionally published books, magazines and newsletters, have migrated to the Internet and become online publishers. Some have created retail websites whose primary objective is to sell traditional hard-copy books. Others are focused on publishing travel reviews on their sites, and derive revenue from advertising and affiliate links.

Still others, such as Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz and Priceline, are Internet travel agencies that place a high value on creating comparisons of prices and schedules. We chose not to review them as part of the top ten because they are retail websites, not media websites.

We make this distinction: The primary goal of a media website is to inform; the primary goal of a retail website is to sell. Similarly, if we were reviewing literature websites, we would not include Amazon.com, which is a retail website whose primary goal is to sell books, not review them.

We did an in-depth examination of 10 most popular travel information websites and evaluated them against 14 criteria—our famous Mequoda website design guidelines. Of the 10 websites, none was perfect, but most were very good and two or three were excellent.

InternationalLiving.com came in as #3, and we’ll tell you why.

International Living indulges the fantasies of Americans who dream of retiring as ex-patriots in exotic countries where luxurious living is cheap and the taxes are low.

The dream is alive and well. For more than a quarter century, International Living has been using a sales letter for its print newsletter that is classic in its ability paint a picture of retirement bliss.

“You look out your window, past your gardener, who is busily pruning the lemon, cherry, and fig trees…amidst the splendor of gardenias, hibiscus, and hollyhocks. The sky is clear blue.”

“The sea is a deeper blue, sparkling with sunlight.”

“A gentle breeze comes drifting in from the ocean, clean and refreshing, as your maid brings you breakfast in bed.”

“For a moment, you think you have died and gone to heaven.”

“But this paradise is real. And affordable. In fact, it costs only half as much to live this dream lifestyle…as it would to stay in your own home!”

A product of Bill Bonner and the fabulously successful Agora Publishing Company, International Living is now marketed online at InternationalLiving.com with the same expertise that Agora brings to marketing its financial publications, including Early to Rise and The Daily Reckoning.

The website’s big promise is that “International Living’s one-of-a-kind e-letter will help you understand all that you need to know about the opportunities the world offers you today.”

“Learn how to double your retirement resources and live as though you had twice the income. Discover 6 countries where you can live or retire in comfort and style on $1,500 per month, including a nice home, groceries, utilities, country club dues, even entertainment and travel.”

1. Strategic Intent – A

InternationalLiving.com clearly wants your email address so that Agora can regularly market to you via email. It strategically places its email signup box in the top right quadrant of the home page for their main email newsletter, IL’s Free Daily Postcard where you can “Find out how you can Retire, Travel, Buy Real Estate, Invest and Enjoy Life Overseas”.

Users looking for information about overseas living will find plenty here. From the left navigation you can easily identify what you’re looking for wheteher it be about their print publication, free e-letters, free reports, events, or whatever else your heart desires. Users can download 20 free reports, plus sign up for at least a dozen additional special niche, email newsletters.

Thus, InternationalLiving.com does a great job of meeting both user needs and its business objectives.

2. Content Webification – B

There is no innovative use of multimedia at InternationalLiving.com, which would be a welcomed addition.

However, the site does feature a regularly updated blog, as well as a forum separated by Online Discussions, Europe, The Americas, Austalasia and Africa… plus an RSS feed. Good enough to earn a B.

3. Relationship Building (Personalization) – A

As noted above, there is a well-designed signup box for the main email newsletter, plus plenty of links to other, country-specific email newsletters from the initial sign up page.

In addition to that, you will reminded on their blog, that they can recieve the same content via a free subscription to IL’s Free Daily Postcard.

They’ve also partnered with American Writers & Artists, Inc. to offer two enticing email newsletters reaching out to Photographers and Writers wanting to learn how to earn money taking pictures and writing for magazines like International Living.

4. Community Building – A

As noted above, there is a blog where users can comment, leave notes and ask questions to IL editors. There’s also a somewhat active forum that users have to communicate with fellow travelers. Enough to earn this site an A.

Plus, an added community builder is a conspicuous invitation for users to “write for us.”

It says, “We are always on the look out for more people to write for International Living. In particular we publish what we call postcards from people all over the world, telling us about undiscovered international gems…cities, restaurants, hotels/B&B’s, festivals, golf courses, sports facilities or unusual sporting events, fishing, real estate, where to buy bargain goods, get any form of good value etc. etc.

“…we aren’t able to cover travel expenses for our writers and pay upon publication ($25 to $50 per note used on the website, in the E-letter, or in the actuality section of the monthly print issue…more for articles published in our monthly print publications).”

Who could resist that offer?

5. Persistent Navigation – A

The top and left navigation panels remain consistent throughout the site. New users won’t have any problems finding what they seek. Of course, many of the links lead the user to paid products, so this is a hybrid site—part free information, part membership, part retail.

6. User Task Depth – A

Signing up for the newsletter incredibly simple. After the initial email submit, you’re also encouraged to take the next step and subscribe to their other e-letter.

Same goes for Events, if you are looking at events, you are encouraged to take the next step and sign up for their free events e-letter where “You’ll learn how to meet like-minded travelers and local experts in overseas real-estate…international business…culture, cuisine, and art… all while taking an exciting, exotic overseas trip!” ….and hopefully, register for the event!

In addition to this, luckily, browsing, searching, buying a book and registering for an event are a breeze.

7. Affordance – B

Links work and look appropriately so, however, none of the links change color when moused-over, and only some of the links change from blue to maroon when the page has been visited. That knocked them down one grade in this category.

8. Labeling and Language (lexicon and taxonomy) – A

There’s not a lot of technical jargon associated with a travel website, and there certainly isn’tany here at InternationalLiving.com.

Navigation elements are dumbed down to their simplest form: Home, Current Print Issue, Free E-Letters, Free Reports, Bookstore and Events are the primary navigation links on InternationalLiving.com

9. Readability (Content Density) – A

InternationalLiving.com uses a very simple, standard design grid to anchor all the design elements. The result is an acceptable readability.

One recommended improvement: User-selected type sizes. Presumably most of the InternationalLiving.com audience is older Americans—those bearing down on retirement age—who would appreciate the ability to increase the type size with a single click of the mouse.

Most website designers must be under 40 and not yet victims of the “shrinking typeface syndrome” or we would see a “Change the Display Text Size” option more routinely on websites.

10. Organization – A

As noted above, the site’s simple, understated design works to organize the elements and proves the old minimalist adage, less is more.

11. Content Freshness – B

The daily update frequency at InternationalLiving.com seems often enough. But we reserve our highest grade for sites that are updated constantly throughout the day. So it was awarded a B.

12. Load Time – D

Download time was 125.73 seconds at 56 K as measured by the website optimization tool.

For a site with such a lack of innovative media use, it’s surprisingly slow to load each page. Nobody likes to wait two full minutes to see everything on a homepage. We’re betting that at least some of the graphics and ads here could be better optimized for faster downloads.

13. Aesthetics – A

InternationalLiving.com isn’t going to win a beauty contest or a graphic design contest. But it is perfectly adequate for what it is intended to do.

And while we don’t care for the distractions caused by animated display ads, at least most of the ads on this site are for the publisher’s own products and not a third party.

14. Brand Preference – A

The site uses the International Living logotype consistently across all its pages, as well as on its print version of the newsletter, which is certainly an aide to branding.

And InternationalLiving.com looks vaguely like all the other Agora Publishing Company sites, which begs a question. Why doesn’t the publisher leverage the brand and cross-sell to all the subscribers of all the newsletters and information products more aggressively? All the Agora products appear to be designed for customers with the same demographics: older people with discretionary money to spend or invest.

Conclusion

Overall, InternationalLiving.com is a fine example of a travel information website. It isn’t exciting, but perhaps that’s intentional. The site appears to work well enough.

Executive Summary

House of White Birches, a division of the Dynamic Resource Group, is an experienced print publisher. It has an enviable collection of magazines and book titles. It has carved out several profitable special-interest niches that it addresses with excellent products. But like many other successful print publishers, its Internet marketing strategy is not well executed.

The WhiteBirches.com site suffers from disorganization and an inferior architecture that confuses users and diminishes sales.

Additionally, the site misses the opportunity to create an ongoing, engaging relationship with needlework enthusiasts because it offers no discussion forum to encourage return visits.

Introduction

House of White Birches is a consumer book, magazine and mail order catalog company founded more than 50 years ago by two brothers, Ed and Mike Kutlowski. They were pioneers in the magazine industry, producing a wide variety of niche publications decades before the current explosion of special-interest magazines.

In 1985, the Kutlowskis retired and sold their business to printers Carl and Art Muselman. HWB currently publishes seven magazines, many of which were launched in the 1970s and are still popular today.

Good Old Days, HWB’s oldest and largest magazine, first began publication in 1964. Other titles include Home Cooking, Crochet World, Quilter’s World, PaperWorks and Creative Knitting.

Since 1995, the company has published more than 100 hardcover and soft cover book titles for consumers.

House of White Birches is one of several publishing-related companies owned by the Muselman family, all organized under the umbrella of Dynamic Resource Group, which includes:

• House of White Birches, publishers of books and magazines in the interest areas of quilting, crafts, crochet, knitting, plastic canvas, sewing, cooking, doll collectibles and Good Old Days nostalgia publications;
• Annie’s Attic, publishers of books, pattern books and magazines in the interest areas of crochet, cross-stitch, crafts, plastic canvas, knitting and sewing;
• The Needlecraft Shop, publishers of needlecraft books, pattern books and magazines; and
• American School of Needlework, a leader in the needlework industry that produces books in knitting and crochet, cross-stitch, embroidery, quilting, and fabric crafts.

Today we take a hard look at www.WhiteBirches.com, one of the company’s numerous popular websites. In the Mequoda model it’s a hub-retail hybrid website, which, according to our sources, generates 30 percent of the publisher’s magazine subscriptions. With a revised Internet marketing strategy, that number could be a lot higher.

Let’s see how WhiteBirches.com measures up against the 14 Mequoda Website Design Guidelines.

1. Strategic Intent – C – Action to be taken is not prominent

This site wants to start a relationship with visitors by offering free email newsletters, but the offer is hidden in the lower left quadrant.

Even worse, it makes signing up a two-step process that requires the visitor to click away to another page—inefficient and dangerous. Not a smart Internet marketing strategy.

However, when the visitor does eventually get to the Dynamic Resource Group newsletter signup page, it does offer numerous choices. This is a case of delayed gratification, and while multiple choices are nice, the publisher risks losing a percentage of total visitors with each additional (and unnecessary) click.

2. Content Webification – C – Search engine only

There is a site search engine here and not much more. We found no evidence of any downloadable samples, instructions or needlework patterns. An effective Internet marketing strategy would include offering instantly downloadable reports of needlework patterns. By comparison to some of its competitors, WhiteBirches.com is very low-tech.

By comparison to some of its competitors, WhiteBirches.com is very low-tech.

3. Relationship Building – B – Content personalization devices are present

The website attempts to capture the visitor’s email address with the free email newsletter offers. And while no instantly downloadable reports or needlework patterns are offered, the site attempts immediately to sell paid products such as the Collectible Doily Series, which includes four free doily patterns and other gifts. This is a customer continuity program (every month customers receive two all-new sets of Projects Pages at $4.99 per set, plus postage and processing.)

4. Community Building – F – No community involvement devices

Hobbyists love to show off their work and share ideas with each other.

Other websites devoted to selling needlework patterns, such as ArtisticThreadWorks.com, have leveraged these shared enthusiasms by creating online communities of loyal customers.

House of White Birches Internet marketing strategy misses a huge opportunity here by not providing a discussion forum or the ability for needlecraft hobbyists to upload and display photos of their work.

5. Persistent Navigation – D – Is neither persistent nor consistent

The persistent site visitor can eventually find his way to the website pages where she can order books or magazine subscriptions, but House of White Birches doe not make this easy.

The tabbed architecture of the home page actually takes visitors off to some other DRG publication websites, sometimes without opening a new window. This is definitely not a recommended Internet marketing strategy.

6. User Task Depth – C – A hodgepodge

To succeed in user task depth, a website should encourage clearly defined “next steps.” House of White Birches does not do this.

Sure, the user can find her way around with some effort, sign up for a free email newsletter, or buy a magazine subscription. But the organization of this website is a hodgepodge and “backing up” or returning to the previous page is often impossible.

When website designers get this part of the website architecture wrong, the results are always costly. Patience is not a widely held web-surfer virtue. Confuse your visitors and they will leave without buying.

7. Affordance – B – Some of the links and buttons have clear affordance

Here the site gets a B+ from me for having blue, underlined hypertext links that turn maroon when clicked. Too bad they don’t turn red when moused over. That’s a website design element that would have earned an A.

The buttons are drab but functional. Unfortunately, as railed about above, they sometimes take the user to an entire different website instead of another page on the same site.

8. Labeling and Language – A – Good representation of key words

Crafts, crochet, home cooking, etc.—these words and phrases are simple enough that few people who visit this site are going to be confused by technical jargon. Although I must point out that “easy-to-stitch plastic canvas” is a notion that is foreign to me. But then again, I’m not a needlecraft kind of guy.

Additionally, if this were my client, I would recommend creating a separate website for each publication. At the very least, they should isolate the home cooking products from the needlecraft products.

9. Readability and Content Density – A – Uncluttered, adequate white space

The site is uncluttered, and easy to read. But that doesn’t excuse its being poorly organized (see below).

The layout is very narrow, resulting in considerable unused white space abutting its curiously under-used right navigation panel.

The layout is very narrow, resulting in considerable unused white space
abutting its curiously under-used right navigation panel.

10. Content Organization (Marketing Quadrants) – C – Primary tasks obscured

Again, I believe a separate website for each publication is in order. But if limited only to WhiteBirches.com, here’s what would improve the organization and overall Internet marketing strategy of the site:

1. Move the free newsletter signup to the top left or top right quadrant.
2. Remove the less important navigation tabs — corporate, employment, advertising, etc. — from the top and use only hypertext links to these sections at the bottom.
3. Isolate and integrate all ordering activity, and make it accessible on the WhiteBirches.com site, (not on some other site) with the click of one, prominent button that appears in the identical place on the home page and every other page, as well.
4. Move the search function from the top left quadrant to the top right.

11. Content Freshness – D – Content doesn’t change much

The site seems very staid. The content doesn’t change very often. The site doesn’t offer visitors any incentives to return.

12. Load Time – C – Under 50 seconds on 56K for text

Download time for WhiteBirches.com was 31.38 seconds at 56 K as measured by the website optimization tool.

13. Aesthetics – A – Support the purpose of the site

This site is simple and pristine. Use of the color green, which is generally associated with leisure, is consistent with this user’s mental model.

14. Brand Preference – C – Sends confusing messages

The WhiteBirches.com site subjugates its brand to the higher authority of the DRGBooks.com brand. This is another instance of unnecessarily confusing the user — an unwise Internet marketing strategy.

Conclusion

House of White Birches and Dynamic Resource Group have an enviable collection of titles and have carved out profitable niches. But like many other successful print magazine publishers, their Internet marketing strategy and website design could be greatly improved. Recommended reading: How to Start & Run an Effective Internet Marketing System.

Although competent in most areas, a few, relatively easily-implemented changes—described in the Recommendations section at the end of this review—could increase sales by building a stronger emotional bond between the store and its customers.

1. Purpose (5) The purpose of the Writer’s Store is immediately obvious when you visit. All text and graphic elements on the home page relate to the needs of professional writers. The site’s mission is immediately obvious: “Best Selection, Lowest Prices & Free Shipping.”

2. Engagement (3) The home page of the Writer’s Store illustrates the difficulty of reconciling “engagement” with catalog content that includes thousands of products. There is no focus, or single starting point, for visitors to begin their exploration of the site. Various navigational tools permit visitors to explore different product categories, including articles and columns, but it’s “every man for himself.”

   As a first-time visitor and writer, I wanted an introduction more than just a visual impression of “a lot of useful resources at fair and reasonable prices.” I wanted a “me-oriented” opening statement that showed understanding of my needs, rather than a variation of it’s “both better and cheaper!” claim.

   I wanted to know more: who are the faces behind the products, who shops there, where do I start my visit to the site, what should I do first? Visiting during the first week of January, I would have liked a “Top Ten Resources For Greater Success This Year” type of summary timed to the season, or links to articles about forthcoming opportunities.

3. Navigation (4) Navigation is one of the site’s strong points. As a database-driven website, content—articles, books, software, training, etc.—can be accessed by category, product name or keyword.

   More important, taking a cue from Amazon.com, each product listing is followed by recommendations for similar products, introduced by the statement, “Writers who shopped for this item also viewed these items,” followed by five recommendations.

   When appropriate, related products are displayed to the right of the featured product.

4. Readability (4) Although the type is on the small side, it is easy to read. There is a clear hierarchy separating primary and secondary content on each page. Text is primarily black against a white background.

   The only time readability problems arise is when line lengths grow to long, particularly in the articles section, where the absence of text to the right of the article creates lines of excessive length.

5. Relationship building (2) The Writer’s Store falls into the frequently-encountered trap of offering an email newsletter, but doesn’t provide strong incentives to subscribe to it! If you click on the arrow next to the sign-up text box, the page that appears promotes the benefits of receiving the newsletter. Unfortunately, only those who have already decided to sign-up for the newsletter discover the “reasons to sign up! (A classic example of “preaching to the converted.”)

   

   Worse, the text promoting the newsletter appears in the smallest typeface on the site, which means the Writer’s Store’s most important sales message is both hard to locate and hard to read!

6. Freshness (4) Each time I visited the site over the course of a month, the “What’s New” section had been updated. Unfortunately however, the freshness of the “What’s New” section on the home page, and its continuation on a linked page, does not feature the newest articles to appear on the site. “What’s New” information is limited to new products and services.
7. Design (3) A website with as many products can easily become cluttered and disorganized, with numerous colors and text elements competing for attention. That hasn’t occurred here, due to the restrained use of colors. The primary site color is a deep blue, which complements the numerous text links on each page.

   The only area design falls down is with inconsistent line lengths. When the primary text element is limited to approximately 60 percent of the page width, the text lines are easy to read. But readability suffers when text extends in an unbroken line from “sea to shining sea,” i.e. from left screen margin to right screen margin.

   A lack of writer’s guidelines, in particular, the use of short paragraphs and frequent subheads, also contributes to occasionally dauntingly-dense paragraphs.

8. Action (3) With the exception of an opportunity to sign up for the store’s email newsletter, there is little to compel visitors to deepen their relationship.

   My overwhelming response, when visiting the site, was temporary nostalgia for the focus of “sales letter” sites with their clear focus on a single action. Unless I was ready to buy today, or had the time to explore the nooks and crannies of the site further, I was unlikely to either sign-up for the newsletter or remember the URL and return again.

   This is a shame because the site offers a wealth of resources, not only products and services, (i.e. seminars and training), but also useful articles and profiles of writers at various stages of success.

9. Technology (3) Database technology is appropriately used to provide me with fast navigation plus numerous context-sensitive options and recommendations.

   Where technology could have been used to greater effect relates to personalizing the site. Online audio could be used for a welcoming statement from the owner, customer testimonials, or short seminar excerpts.

   A lot is going on in and around the store: audio could be profitably employed to “beat the silence of the Web.”

   Likewise, given the advances of programs like Camtasia, short online videos could demonstrate use of some of the software programs available at the Writer’s Store.

10. Connection (2) After several visits, I still feel I “want more” connection from the Writer’s Store website. Following my initial visits, I’m likely to bookmark the site and I feel positive about the site. The site is functional, but a bit too impersonal for me.

    The content is competent and complete, and the articles are strong and both useful and personable, but there is no unifying emotional package to the site.

11. Return visits (2) Whether or not I return to the site is entirely dependent on need for specialized software or a specialized book I can’t locate locally. I haven’t signed up for the email newsletter, because I wasn’t given a strong enough incentive to do so.
12. Community (2) The articles offer a feeling of community with other working writers, but there is little opportunity for interactivity in the form of online events, chat sessions, or a question-and-answer forum.

    Given the focused market, and the decreasing cost of audio recordings, it would be feasible for the Writer’s Store to sponsor a weekly online “radio program” or interview series that could be archived on the site for free—24/7 accessibility.

Recommendations

The Writer’s Store is great as it is, but because of a lack of emotional bonding with customers and visitors, it is vulnerable to price and selection competition from elsewhere.

Suggested improvements to protect the Writer’s Store’s franchise include:

• “E-Mail this Article to a friend” feature
• “Personalized working area” for articles and products I want to access
• “Printer-friendly” versions of articles and product descriptions
• Revising template to eliminate possibility of long-lines
• Interactive question-and-answer forum
• Stronger contributor’s guidelines emphasizing short paragraphs and frequent subheads
• Photographs and profiles of store staff, typical customers, “writer of the month,” etc.
• Tip of the day (or week)

Forbes.com is part of (do I really need to say this?) the Forbes family publishing business. Including the familiar Forbes magazine, the websites Forbes.com and ForbesAutos.com, spin-off magazines such as ForbesLife, business and investing specialty newsletters, a business conference division and Forbes on Fox TV. This is a typical Mequoda publishing pyramid—with a very rich family sitting on top.

Well the family hasn’t let the money get to their heads, Forbes.com is a commendable site from a design and usability perspective. With 15 million unique visitors worldwide, Forbes.com is an exceptional example of how providing first-rate free content turns the site into “must-buy media.”

The site passes the Mequoda Website Design scorecard with enough A’s to make it to the top of the Mequoda 400 list—if there was one (not a bad idea). Unsurprising were the top grades in strategic intent and brand preference for the prominent business magazine. The criteria that upped the ante were the A’s earned in content webification and relationship building and readability. With advertisers footing the bill, Forbes.com has built a website offering a superior—and free—online content experience for users.

Forbes.com’s Mequoda Scorecard

1. Strategic Intent – A

Forbes has chosen the free content/advertising model for their website. Forbes.com is designed to garner subscriptions to the print magazine. However, since payment is not required to consume any online content, subscriptions are treated like a house ad. This advertising revenue strategy creates specific design requirements—namely to create as much online ad inventory as possible, to offer a variety of options for advertisers and to have a deep library and interactive content to keep visitors on the site as long as possible.

The first time user will get the message immediately. The prominent space allotted to, and high-production quality of, the advertisements make it visually obvious who’s footing the bill for this free content ride. (Users do have to register to access some parts of the site, indicated either by a login wall, or an icon on a link.) The site strategy from the user point of view, “come, read, hang out, maybe sign up or subscribe, view some ads,” is clear, and Forbes.com earns their first A.

2. Content Webification – A

A laundry list of content webification tactics are found on Forbes.com. All of the below functionalities are well integrated within the content, and well promoted.

• Blogs – especially useful to keep the site fresh
• Audio – purchased by article, by issue or yearly subscription in MP3 format
• Video – the video network is streaming and feels like watching TV (including the ads!)
• Slideshows – from hottest cars to best beaches, pictures tell a thousand…
• Tools – Portfolio tracker, people tracker, fund screener, personal finance planning tools—the finance site basics
• E-Learning – Business Learning Center featuring free courses from protecting your computer from viruses to the basics of personal finance to starting your own business.

Additionally, Forbes has a niche in the business magazine world. They are famous for their lists: Forbes 2000, 400 Richest Americans, 100 Most Powerful Women, etc…. These lists represent a lot of legwork and are treated as a definitive research tool. Branded evergreen content like this will bring a constant stream of [social climbers, yacht salesmen, hedge fund managers] to the site.

A laundry list of content webification tactics are found on Forbes.com, including extensive use of videos.

3. Relationship Building – A

Forbes.com aggressively invites visitors to start a relationship. Some components:

• Subscribe: a) “free trial issue” right above the top search box, b) “Subscribe to Forbes Magazine Only $19.99 click here” ad above membership/login link and c) subscribe options also appear at the bottom of every article.
• Free Newsletters: Email Alerts box between the content and the two rows of ads. This “can’t miss” spot includes a graphic, and the hot words “free” and “new stories.” Users can then select specific topics—increasing the personalization component of relationship building.

Free Newsletters: Email Alerts box between the content and the two rows of ads. This “can’t miss” spot includes a graphic, and the hot words “free” and “new stories.”

4. Community Building – D

You can’t just put up a forum and hope that the community builds itself. The only thing that will grow in an untended forum is spam, spam and betting on spam. Once the actual reader who has an honest question pops in and sees nothing but spam, guess what they’re going to do? Leave. Even with almost 90 percent of the posts in the discussions using words like “casino,” “make money” and “lotto” in their headlines, I still found a few honest folks trying to keep it real, writing responses to posts that most people would know at once was spam.

For example, a post about looking for a mentor (spelling/grammatical errors included): “I been trying to collect money from investors for a start up company, but investors are very gretty and all want at least half of the company.” To this highly suspicious post came 10 reasonable, considerate and real answers. The audience is there, they want to participate, they are just overwhelmed by spammers abusing the functionality that Forbes is providing.

The forum is the barest of nods towards building a community on the site. There are no other methods to connect with other members, users are simply not encouraged to participate. The sense of “camaraderie and belonging,” created by good community usability, is not the feeling a member of this site will have when they click away.

5. Persistent Navigation – A

The key to persistent navigation is to help the user find anything on the site, fast. No clicking about, desperately hitting the back button. Make it clear where they are, and how to get somewhere else. Even with deep layers of content, multiple topics and content formats, covering three continents—Forbes.com answers this challenge. The navigation strategy includes:

1. A drop-down to types of content (for example “IT Research Library” or “Video & Audio”).
2. A search content or quote box.
3. Top navigation bar with topics and rollover to see sub-topics.
4. Topic index pages with deeper content presented as bolded headline links, with photos, to highlight feature stories.
5. Within an article, the breadcrumbs indicate the article’s location within the site.

All of these are standard website navigation and earn high usability marks.

6. Task Depth – A

These are the tasks tested on Forbes.com:

1. Get free information: Users can easily find content by browsing by section, searching or being drawn in to video and headlines from the center of the homepage.
2. Subscribe: Subscription to the print magazine is promoted on the homepage, and throughout the site. The Subscribe form is a simple one page form, with images of the magazines.
3. Change Preferences: As a logged in user, I clicked on “My Settings” in the upper right, (next to Log Out). The rollover kindly told me in yellow text what I could do if I clicked this link. All email options (including all the newsletters) were presented on one page. This makes it easy to check, uncheck and save new settings.
4. Advertise: On the footer of every page is a link to the online media kit via “Ad information.”

All tasks were easy to complete. The results show that the site helps customers to fulfill typical content website tasks easily.

7. Affordance – A

Forbes.com is a deep site, which means there’s a large load of content that has to be easily found by the user. That makes affordance a challenge, and is most likely the rationale behind the somewhat excessive use of mouse rollovers on the top navigation.

Affordance means that every user can see everything easily, and one visual pitfall is when sites choose colors unwisely. So there are two technical knocks here, a) too much mouse-over required to find content and b) white type on a coloredd background can be hard for people to see.

I can’t give Forbes.com a bad grade, though. Because all the content links were blue/bold or blue/underlined, buttons were obviously buttons and almost everything from videos to advertising was clearly marked. When I play on a site all day with no surprises and don’t mutter under my breath about bad affordance, I know they got it right.

8. Labeling and Language – A

Keywords on Forbes.com include “entrepreneurs, “business,” “technology,” “markets,” “finance” and oh yeah, “millionaires”… oops, I meant billionaires. From “compensation” to “estate planning,” everything a “high-net worth individual” needs to know is written in the target-audience’s language.

9. Readability (Content Density) – A

Forbes.com is heavy on the adspace. Glancing at an article page, I see about 20 percent of the screen on external ads, plus another 20 percent for house ads. Scrolling down maintains the ratio, with the bottom of the page a little bouquet of “delivered by,” “market data by” and “powered by” third-party linked logos. This isn’t even mentioning the advertisements on the video, or the number of rich media ads that occasionally cover the editorial.

And yet, the layout still serves the reader well. Article content starts with a flush left headline, byline and date. The main content of an article is centered, with a somewhat narrow column width for the first few paragraphs. The balance between the colorful moving blinking things that try to drag the reader away from the boring little black letters on a white background is tenuous, but works.

The layout serves the reader well. Article content starts with a flush left headline, byline and date.

10. Organization – B

The top two quadrants, upper left and right, are well balanced between primary links and advertising/marketing links. The lower two quadrants (before scrolling) are splitting the screen with content on the left, advertising on the right. Content starts fairly low on the screen, appearing only in the lower left quadrant, or 1/4 of the screen above the fold. Organization improves on the content index pages, as the links to articles use more of the screen.

11. Content Freshness – A

Forbes.com is a monthly magazine, but the site has content updated throughout the day with time stamped AP headlines under “Global Business News.” It also has its own bloggers and articles updated daily. There will always be something new for the return visitor.

12. Load Time – C

According to the Webpage Analyzer, Forbes.com loads on a 56K modem at 41 seconds. I personally noticed that there was a longer wait than I’m used to, even on a fast connection.

13. Aesthetics – A

The color palette takes no risks. The businesslike blue tones with grey and black for text and outlines create a non-noticeable backdrop from which to hang the colorful ads. User eye candy needs are met with photographs for feature stories. The business reader doesn’t generally want fancy visuals, they expect a serious look with just enough color to keep them awake.

The businesslike blue tones with grey and black for text and outlines create a non-noticeable backdrop from which to hang the colorful ads. User eye candy needs are met with photographs for feature stories.

14. Brand Preference – A

Forbes.com builds the existing Forbes brand identity—a brand that has been created in the minds of their audience from 90 years of the magazine’s history. The editorial focus is the same as the print publication, and brings in relevant sections from the publisher’s other properties, such as American Heritage, without disturbing the distinct Forbes brand on the site. The interactive tools and fresh content add value to the brand in the audience’s mind. Nowhere on the site are other content providers, or other logos, allowed to confuse the reader about whose site they are on and whose brand is being presented. The usual print/online problem also doesn’t exist here, Forbes and Forbes.com stand together and build on each other seamlessly.

Conclusion

Looking back over the results here are the standouts on Forbes.com: advanced content webification with an abundance of functionalities for the user to enjoy, commitment to relationship building with the large opt-in box and ever-present links to email newsletters by topic and the attention to the user’s needs with readable articles and sound aesthetic choices. The takeaway shows that a site can optimize both for the reader and for the advertiser. Forbes.com is an interesting place for the visitor to spend their time, each article read creating more ad inventory and paying the for user’s “free content ride.”

Readers familiar with Mequoda as Internet Media Review (IMR), might remember that Discover.com was given the number one Best Practice Ranking for Consumer Magazine Website Design. Since that time, a lot has changed—for Discover.com, for the Mequoda website design scorecard and for magazine websites.

The changes: Discover.com was bought from parent Disney by Bob Guccione Jr. at the end of 2005; IMR changed its name to Mequoda and has increased the scorecard to include 14 categories instead of the original 10 and finally the drastic improvement of media websites in the last two years has raised the bar for all entrants considerably. At the end of the review, Discover.com has lost a little ground, but not much. This scorecard shows that Discover.com still brings the right strategy to their site, increasing subscriptions and consumer reach.

Bob Guccione Jr. (founder of Spin and Gear) bought Discover and its respected, intelligent science and technology editorial because he wanted to “eradicate the preciousness of the science category.” He wanted to make a magazine accessible and interesting to a mass audience. Readability, labeling and language and relationship building are some of the good grades on this scorecard that bear out this argument. But, If he really wants to follow through on his promise to make the magazine site more “exciting and entertaining,” Discover.com has some work to do in community building and content webification.

• Discover how they balance their homepage real estate for in-house advertising and external advertising – page 8
• Learn how Discover.com takes advantage of personalization features to build relationships with users – page 10
• Understand why Discover.com is leaving a great opportunity on the table by ignoring this one very viable community building tool – page 12
• Avoid the mistake Discover.com is making in their website navigation – page 14
• Find out what’s missing from the Discover.com site that could have users coming back for more everyday – page 21

Discover.com’s Mequoda Scorecard

1. Strategic Intent – A

Discover.com is a hybrid site with revenues coming from both advertising and subscriptions. The user coming for content will see both the advertisements on the top and right side of the page, and the subscribe actions on the nameplate and menu bar. In addition, unknown users will be encouraged to subscribe on the content wall that appears before subscriber-only articles (most of the content on the site).

Visually, the actions that satisfy user needs and business needs are prioritized well. The site real estate for in-house advertising (for subscribe) and external advertising are well balanced with the user’s desire for content browsing and readability.

2. Content Webification – C

The way that people expect to consume content online is changing rather fast—in case you hadn’t noticed. Discover.com hasn’t kept up—there are no podcasts, blogs, not even an RSS feed to be found.

I did see a link to a video on one story, but the link was to a partner site “For video of this story, visit our partner, www.sciencentral.com.” Partnerships are a viable option to conserve costs—we’d just like to see the videos promoted better and more of them. Users love interactive and multi-media sites, that’s why they’re hurting their eyes reading a screen and not reading the print magazine, after all.

3. Relationship Building – A

Discover.com is very effective at acquiring email addresses and opening relationship building conversation. The site offers some content for free, but most of the articles are behind the content wall. After reading a paragraph, unknown users are shown a login/register wall with options for free registration for partial access or subscribing for full access.

Discover.com also has some neat personalization features. The user can create their own library of articles, and can add new topics to their newsletter alerts on the fly as each article has an “article Tools” box (including: Email article, Print article and Rate article). The user can access their personal selections via the “My Discover” link on the top navigation.

After reading a paragraph, unknown users are shown a login/register wall with options for free registration for partial access or subscribing for full access.

4. Community Building – D

The old Discover.com had forums—I checked on the wayback machine just to be sure. I couldn’t find them on the current site, nor for that matter much community building at all. The one way that users are encouraged to contribute is the article rating system. Users rate the articles on a one to 10 scale, and the results are presented next to the headline along with the total number of votes. This interactive community building tactic could create more enthusiasm and loyalty if it also allowed users to communicate directly about their votes. Real community building would help users connect to each other, using the site as the context. Let them argue, defend and champion their beliefs to create an enthusiastic and loyal community.

Users rate the articles on a one to 10 scale, and the results are presented next to the headline along with the total number of votes.

5. Persistent Navigation – B

In the previous review Mequoda (then IMR) said this about Discover.com:

The persistent navigation on the Discover.com site is exceptional. The sidebar navigation covers the site-wide navigation and there is a contextual menu that appears as breadcrumbs and a horizontal ribbon above articles, helping the user navigate or take action with the article.

The site has made some design changes since then, unfortunately losing ground in this category. The top navigation and contextual menu (breadcrumbs) still exist, which is good; however the left hand navigation does some funky tricks.

There is one group of sub-sections: “Today’s Features,” “Editor’s Picks” and “Current Issue,” and then another group: “Inside The Current Issue” “Online Exclusives” and “Top 5 Articles.” It wasn’t clear why the left navigation changed. Users have to learn the navigation on each new site they visit, websites are really interactive pieces of software and require effort to learn. Making it harder for the user by changing the menu for no obvious reason doesn’t help. Discover.com gets dinged a grade on this criteria for creating an unnecessary confusion.

There is one group of sub-sections: “Today’s Features,” “Editor’s Picks” and “Current Issue,” and then another group: “Inside The Current Issue” “Online Exclusives” and “Top 5 Articles.” It wasn’t clear why the left navigation changed.

6. Task Depth – A

Discover.com allows the user to easily complete all of the common magazine site tasks, including subscribing; customer service such as changing mailing address or email address; changing newsletter topics and of course, searching and browsing for content. The process for all of the above follow Web standards and were easy to find.

7. Affordance – A

Affordance on Discover.com is very clear and enables a user to click where they want to go without having to think twice. Almost every link is underlined or a bold headline using standard Web conventions.

Two small complaints:

1. Some color choices were hard to see—for example the olive green links on an orange background in the left navigation.

2. Action buttons “Go” and “Search” have no mouseover change, which made me stop and think before clicking on them.

Neither of these seriously got in the way of traveling around the site, Discover.com still earns an A.

8. Labeling and Language – A

Discover.com is a science magazine aimed at the general public. The inherent conundrum for a pop-science book is to use language sophisticated enough to make the intelligent, knowledge-seeking audience feel they’ve found the smart club, while staying basic enough to welcome those who might not have had the luxury of a higher degree. On the site standard Web-speak, “Home,” “Archive,” “My Discover,” will help any websurfer navigate correctly—no need to reinvent the wheel.

The headlines and articles are where the language line is tested. The success of it lies in the fun pop-speak of headlines such as “Fat Belly Genes” and “:dark Side of the Sun,” balanced with the wise-old professor nod over the bifocals in headlines such as “Vox Populi” and “Drowsy Drosophila.” The audience feels welcomed with the fun and simple words while also built up with a little bit of Latin.

9. Readability (Content Density) – A

Discover.com is very readable. The by-now ubiquitous sans-serif black on white copy is usually a good column width, and stories are balanced with sub-heads and interesting photos to break up the text. Advertisements take the right column, and the leaderboard space on top, keeping them out of the way of the content.

10. Organization – B

Dividing the screen into four quadrants gives a quick measure of the balance of marketing and primary links on the page. In house marketing, for subscriptions, is found in only one quadrant, plus on the content wall login page. External advertising is found in three quadrants, and primary content in all four. The balance favors user needs, although the publisher is letting the business needs suffer a bit.

11. Content Freshness – D

Articles on Discover.com are date stamped, usually by month, not day. The stamp also typically includes the print magazine Vol. and No.—how old school media is that? Missing from this set-up is the sense of up-to-the-minute intensity found with a time-stamped daily post—the reader needs to know that the content is new. I did see the lead story change day-to-day, but without a date next to the headline the schedule is lost to the reader on the homepage. Online readers need context and frequency for their information—there must be new information daily and the date has to be on every point of entry to each article.

12. Load Time – D

Discover.com is taking the long view—as in the turning-a-stream-into-a-canyon sort of time scale. At over a minute (64 seconds) download time on a 56K modem, they must think the audience likes watching dust accumulate on the monitor.

The Webpage Analyzer’s analysis points to images and total page size as the culprits.

13. Aesthetics – A

Discover.com’s friendly color scheme of orange, yellow and tan is fun, friendly and maybe a little reminiscent of a high school science textbook (and maybe I’m just saying that because of the yellow-lined paper background that is used on the homepage). In any case, the design suits the purpose of the site and doesn’t cause any cognitive dissonance with the user mental model. Although a college textbook look might be a nice step up.

Discover.com’s friendly color scheme of orange, yellow and tan is fun, friendly and maybe a little reminiscent of a high school science textbook.

14. Brand Preference – A

When Mequoda gave Discover.com a great score in 2004 (as IMR), Brand was one of the criteria they excelled in, and nothing has changed on this score. The cover page of Discover the magazine is used frequently to connect the brand across the online and print platform, and Discover.com constantly refers to the print edition’s Vol. and No. on each article. The site builds on the print brand, increasing marketing reach and product value.

Conclusion

Discover.com has some work to do, particularly in the categories of content freshness, load time and community building. The other categories, for example strategic intent and relationship building, are still strong. The site that earned a top score in 2004 hasn’t lost too much ground. The story here is simply a wake-up call. As an online publisher continuous improvement is a requirement just to keep up.

Consumer Reports’ successful membership website strategy has earned them over two million online subscribers (as of November, 2005). Averaging well over 20,000 new online subscribers per month, it’s obvious this site is doing something right.

The site started with a clear product position—a valuable information resource that could not accept advertising. That led to only one choice in strategy: a paid membership website offering large archives of information.

• The print product would still present long, in-depth articles on, say, reducing energy costs and the products that would help, while the Web would be sold as a research product.
• Members could look through years of reviews to find the exact product and model they were interested in.
• The differences between the print and online product made sense, both to the business and to the end consumer.
• Even as a paid membership site, CR has some free content.
• The hardest design question has always been how to make it immediately visually obvious what is free and what is paid content on the site.

ConsumerReports.org’s Mequoda Scorecard

1. Strategic Intent – A

“Instant Online Access Now! Get Expert Ratings, buying advice and reliability on hundreds of products. Join Now” is the front page pitch. Knowing the brand’s long non-profit history, and knowing that they don’t take advertising, is the unspoken power behind this argument. Just in case the visitor lives in a media cave and hadn’t heard of Consumer Reports, they can browse the free consumer news to get a taste of the quality of content available here.

The site makes the pay-me-for-information proposition well inside the first-glance test. The red “Join Now” button, plus the “for Subscribers” heading and “Log in or Subscribe now” links are obvious cues even to the clueless.

After the first glance, CR doesn’t give up on encouraging subscription. When a user clicks down into a headline, the content wall pops up. The page then offers a login box and a subscription pitch. If the user is reading free content, there is a “For Complete Access” pitch next to the content, as well as the constant red “Join Now” ad. After subscribing, the new online member is hit with an upsell to the print magazine. On the site as well, there are constant house advertisements for additional CR products, including “Consumer Reports on Health”, “Consumer Reports Money Advisor” and “New Car Buying Kit” among others.

The site strategy is clear to a visitor: CR is a reputable non-profit offering a lot of valuable content, the business makes money through direct sales and subscriptions alone, and that there are several content products offered.

When a user clicks down into a headline, the content wall pops up. The page then offers a login box and a subscription pitch. If the user is reading free content, there is a “For Complete Access” pitch next to the content, as well as the constant red “Join Now” ad.

2. Content Webification – B

The depth of content available—over four years of Ratings on thousands of consumer products—is mind-boggling. Searching is well managed, even browsing is a viable method for digging to find specific content. The site is using the deep database style of Web content very well. Content webification lags on the more interactive opportunities. CR has started down these innovative paths:

• Video/Games: I enjoyed the animated scrolling of featured headlines on the front page. I also watched a short spot showing a man’s burned-down house that was due to a faulty dryer and played a flash quiz on when to buy organic, based on the feature story about best organic food choices.

• Tools: The Product Selector is currently being re-furbished, to be released later this month. New functionalities promoted include customization and sorting of charts, and ability to see non-Consumer Reports-rated products alongside the rated ones.

In the first category, I would like to see more videos, and better promotion of the video and games to really enhance the experience of using the site. It still fits with the site content strategy, because watching the video brings the user’s attention to additional topics. For example after watching about the house I immediately started searching on the safety of the dryer I use. Not only did this entertain me and keep me on the site longer, but it increased the overall value of the site to me and my interest in returning more often.

In the second category I expect the Product Selector will be a great tool, but I can’t rate it if it isn’t functioning. I would like to see more tools like this so that the site feels a little less like browsing through a library and more like searching for a solution-finding tool.

3. Relationship Building – A

As a paid membership site, there isn’t a lot for the unknown user to do on CR until they’ve subscribed or logged in. The relationship building criteria is looking for the prominence of an email capture, which in this case goes hand-in-hand with the subscription. Opting-in for email is part of the subscribe process. There is an additional RSS option for all users, which is rightly given second priority and visually placed below the subscription offers.

4. Community Building – C

Even without good community building devices, the site has loyal and enthusiastic visitors on the strength of the brand and the product. People who read CR have a similar profile, they are the person their friends go to to ask “Which of XYZ should I buy?” They already know that they are a unique group. They relate to each other in the same ‘wavelength’ kind of way that a particular band’s groupies would. On a membership website, a space for members to communicate their enthusiasm publicly, to share thoughts on the content and to talk directly to editors publicly, should be a high priority. Humans thrive on a sense of belonging and contribution.

That’s why it’s such a pity that the discussion forum is not well promoted. I had to search pretty hard to find it (I was sure that some sort of forum had to be there after all). Integrating forums into site content is never easy, as the content comes from different places and is usually on different platforms. One method could simply be to post most recent threads in a house ad space on most content pages. In any case, the community building tool on CR is present, but not well promoted.

5. Persistent Navigation – A

CR has a top navigation bar for browsing by product type (Electronic & Computers, Home & Garden, Babies & Kids etc…. ). This brings the user to a topic index page with deeper levels of sub-topics (Batteries, Video, Mobile etc…. under Electronics).

Truthfully, people use CR for research and will have a good idea of the product they want to find out about before they even turn on the computer. Therefore Search is the key navigation tool. Search is available on every page in the same place, in the upper right hand corner. Navigation bars will play a secondary role to getting to content for CR members. That being said, the persistence of the top navigation bar, use of breadcrumbs and primary links for membership housekeeping earn CR an A in this category.

The persistence of the top navigation bar, use of breadcrumbs and primary links for membership housekeeping earn CR an A in this category.

6. Task Depth – A

User tasks on CR center mostly around finding content and subscribing. Secondarily users will send information to friends, or print information to bring with them to the store. All of these tasks are easy to find, start and accomplish via standard Web usability practices.

7. Affordance – C

There are two basic affordance issues on CR.

1. Color choices on links
2. Indicating type of content

In the first, the problem is simply one of letting the designers ignore basic affordance rules. (A thought that is surprising in this test-manic publisher.) The homepage is divided in half—content for subscribers and free content in the form of ‘news.’ That makes sense, but the separation is made using color and this design decision hurt affordance. The left side of the page has a brown background, and the right side is white, with a list of links. The text on the brown side is white, and the white side has black text. The overall effect is visually pleasing, but white text on a dark background is hard to read, and the non-underlined black text on a white background doesn’t read as a link. Furthermore, when you mouse over the links (on both sides), the text changes color—to off-white! This isn’t linking convention and to many people it looks like the text just disappears. Luckily on other pages—such as an index page for a specific topic—underlines are used on every link to the articles.

On the second point, symbols are used next to article links to indicate additional information. These include an asterisk, an “R” and a dollar symbol in a green circle. There is a key at the bottom (it should be at the top) that says: “* indicates a product that is frequently updated. R indicates a Ratings report. $ indicates Shop Online for comparison pricing. The design also seems to imply that the red circle with a white dote will indicate ratings, but it doesn’t, the simple “R” does. In all, this is useful information and I’m mentioning it not because it’s a bad idea, but because the presentation is confusing. Confusion = bad affordance.

Confusion = bad affordance.

8. Labeling and Language—A

The labeling and language on CR is written with the average consumer in mind. Any industry jargon would be out of place. Words such as “Reports” and “Ratings” represent the only instances of “lingo” on the site, and here they exert power to build brand strength.

9. Readability (Content Density) – A

CR has articles broken up with short paragraphs and tables and they are easy to read online. The use of black sans-serif text on a white background, with one occasional, relevant image per article, make each bit of content a pleasurable online experience.

10. Organization—A

The 2×2 overlay on CR shows that the quadrants are “appropriately exploited.” Content and/or content links are found in all four quadrants, while marketing links (for other CR products, such as special reports, books or a print subscription) are displayed in three out of four quadrants on most pages.

11. Content Freshness—D

Monthly content updates are very frustrating online. Even on a product review site, we still want to know what’s going on, what’s new? As for research, online content must always have a viewable date stamp to put the information in context. The reader needs to have a way to tell if the information is outdated or not. CR doesn’t do that well on the first count, and is just OK on the second.

ConsumerReports.org earns a D on content freshness because the News section on the site updates monthly and many of the articles under the News heading are actually a few months old. As for research, all content does have a (month/year) date stamp. A blog would be one way to put some informal news online that would increase the user’s interest in frequent returns and build traffic.

12. Load Time – C

ConsumerReports.org earns a D on load time, with 46 seconds on a 56K modem recorded on the website analyzer. This is caused mostly by too many images, large image sizes and extensive use of external CSS.

13. Aesthetics – A

With lots of images, attractively designed headlines and intelligent use of color to separate sections of content, ConsumerReports.org has made a site that is more aesthetically pleasing than it needs to be for the audience. CR is designed with a stronger sense of alignment than many of the more image-conscious online publications. This high level of design is built without losing the sense of non-profit objectivity that the brand needs to visually convey. Quite a neat trick.

With lots of images, attractively designed headlines and intelligent use of color to separate sections of content, ConsumerReports.org has made a site that is more aesthetically pleasing than it needs to be for the audience.

14. Brand Preference – A

The familiar Consumer Reports logo is found on all the different media products by the company. While sometimes abbreviated to CR in text, there is really no danger of confusing the user as to the source of the content anywhere on the site. The objectivity and independence of the brand is a key component of the value of the product—the CR Reviews and Ratings. Based on the importance of trust to this audience it would really be a disaster to mess with this criteria, luckily the website design earns a high score in Brand Preference.

Conclusion

With As in strategic intent, relationship building and brand preference, it’s hardly surprising that this non-profit is an online leader in the paid membership website category. Low grades in affordance and load time are surprising, but obviously not stopping the two million subscribers who are willing to put up with a little usability glitches and shell out the dough for the certainty of having the best information available when buying a new product.

CooksIllustrated.com’s Mequoda Scorecard

1. Strategic Intent – A

They’ve made this one easy to call. Since the site doesn’t accept advertising, all revenues have to come directly from the users. The revenue streams come from selling site subscriptions, magazine subscriptions and ancillary products such as books and DVDs of their content.

The user is coming to the site for reliable, trustworthy information. They know that since the site doesn’t accept advertising, they can rely on the content here to be unbiased, following the Consumer Reports model. But this is a cautious audience (I mean they want someone to cook 30 pies so that they know which recipe works best—these are not big risk-takers here.) and a cautious audience will want to try before they buy.

The site has done a great job of balancing these needs. Some content is given away free—and clearly marked as free with a red “Free” over each headline. The site can still monetize the free content pages by advertising their own products (books and DVDs). And the paid content, both print magazines and website subscriptions, are offered on a soft-sell with free trials and no-risk offers.

All of this is visually very clear.

• Magazines: the user sees pictures of the two magazines (Cook’s Illustrated and Cook’s Country) at the top with “Free Trial” written over them.
• A large, separate box for “14 Day Free Trial” for the website subscription ad. Website subscriptions come with flexible terms—with monthly or yearly options.
• More product offers down the right side as internal ads, separated graphically and with benefit-rich headlines.

The “Free Trial” is made very visually clear throughout the site.

2. Content Webification – B

The key benefit of a website like Cook’s Illustrated is the vast searchable archive of information. Therefore, good webification in this case is directly related to advanced search capability. On CooksIllustrated.com, search comes in many flavors:

• General keyword
• Department specific, such as the Equipment Corner or Quick Tips,
• Magazine Index—for those rare people who remember things by date

Since Cook’s Illustrated shares content with their TV program, America’s Test Kitchen, a little more integration of the two would be a welcome addition. We’ve seen sites like MarthaStewart.com put the TV version front and center alongside print content. CooksIllustrated.com has included at least one streaming video from the show next to an article on the site… I would love to see more to really cook up a great user experience.

3. Relationship Building – A

Since Cook’s Illustrated doesn’t accept advertising, building the relationship with the visitor is the first priority. If the user isn’t convinced by the large pitch for a 14 day free trial for a website membership, then perhaps they will be induced by some of the many magazine subscription offers (with free trial issues) on the site. The free newsletter eNotes is given low priority as the form is below the fold. When a user signs up for the free newsletter, they find themselves on a form asking for an address to send the “NO-RISK Free Trial” of Cook’s Illustrated.

Once a user has started the relationship they can personalize the site by saving their favorites—articles, reviews, recipes—and even print out personalized shopping lists.

4. Community Building – B

On a membership website we want to see members talking to each other, feeling connected, sharing their experiences. This interaction makes the site more real, more personal and makes the thought of leaving as hard as leaving a cherished school or neighborhood. Community ties members to the site as well as to each other.

On CooksIllustrated.com we’ve got a busy forum. Members here don’t just talk about the recipes on the site, they talk about their own experiences cooking them. They also come up with ways to meet each other in real life, and then post the photos of the events online. They create PR for the site as well as enjoying themselves.

There should be more promotion of this great community building tool. For example, there were people cooking the key lime dessert recipe within hours of its first appearance on the homepage. That immediate feedback from the community should be viewable right next to the recipe. Great tool, but it needs more promotion and integration with the site to reach its full potential.

On CooksIllustrated.com we’ve got a busy forum.

5. Persistent Navigation – B

The navigation on Cook’s Illustrated is for the most part persistent. Users can get where they’re going and back again. The one design decision that causes confusion is the choice to put two links that open new windows on new sites on the top navigation bar. The two links (mentioned in Affordance) are “TV Show” and “Cook’s Country Magazine”. It makes no intuitive sense when most of the links at the top stay within site, and two take you somewhere else with no way back.

The one design decision that causes confusion is the choice to put two links that open new windows on new sites on the top navigation bar.

6. Task Depth – A

User tasks on Cook’s Illustrated include searching for content, signing up for email, subscribing and participating in the community. All were easy to find, and easy to complete. Search is on every page, with several advanced search options. Subscription entry points to email and magazines were on every page and standard forms. Ditto for the community boards.

7. Affordance – B

The typical user will have no problem figuring out what is a link, what isn’t , and where it will take them on CooksIllustrated.com. The site uses the convention of underlined blue text, and a rollover on the navigation links.

A common problem for a network site appears here. On the top navigation some links stay on CooksIllustrated.com and some go offsite, which is unexpected and frustrating to users. The first few and last few buttons in the top navigation— ‘Home’, ‘Bookstore’, ‘Cook’s Illustrated Magazine’ ‘—’ ‘—’ ‘Chat’, ‘About Us’ ‘Customer Service’—stay on CooksIllustrated.com while the middle two links—’TV Show’ and ‘Cook’s Country Magazine’ both go to new sites. The new sites have changes in look and feel and navigation. When clicking on these buttons that seem to be a part of the in-site navigation, the user will spend a few seconds (or minutes) confused, wondering how they got her and how to get back. The site could alleviate this problem by making it obvious (a.k.a., affordance) that these links will go to a new site.

8. Labeling and Language – A

Cook’s Illustrated labeling and language reflects the everyday words expected by their audience. A sample of language and button labels:

• Shopping list
• Ingredients
• Add to Favorites
• Tasting Lab
• Equipment
• Quick Tips
• Food Science

With the exception of using the word “Chat” to refer to a message board (chat typically refers to an IM interface, not a forum) the language on the site is clear. Even to the uninitiated, unusual phrases like “food science” are easily understood.

9. Readability (Content Density) – A

This site was a pleasure to read as all content is given plenty of white space, fixed column widths and illustrative images when necessary but not excessively. Additional bonuses include: breaking up content for easier reading by subheads and bulleted lists, different methods of viewing content (cool tool: printable shopping lists organized by supermarket department) and related content links with each story.

10. Organization – A

The average user eye will zig-zag across a screen, which is why the Mequoda Scorecard divides the screen into four quadrants to check that all primary and marketing tasks are balanced throughout. The top two quadrants of Cook’s Illustrated are almost entirely internal navigation and subscription offers. The content starts at the center of the screen. The left and right edges have more subscription ads and content navigation. All four quadrants are well-utilized.

11. Content Freshness – D

With so much information, Cook’s Illustrated could be forgiven for thinking of themselves more as a library and than a news outlet. But even libraries have to compete for an audience’s short attention span. Without date stamps on the content, the editorial schedule is unclear on the website. As the magazine is monthly, we can only assume the website is the same.

12. Load Time – D

Download time is too slow, at 58 seconds on 56K modem as measured by the Webpage Analyzer.

13. Aesthetics – A

No-nonsense, sincere and fun is the aesthetic impression I get from Cook’s Illustrated. The color palette of grey, brown and deep red is very grounded—conveying a sense of earthy honesty. Photos of products, foods and the real people doing the tests adds to the feeling of neighborly helpfulness that the audience expects.

The color palette of grey, brown and deep red is very grounded—conveying a sense of earthy honesty.

14. Brand Preference – C

There is some confusion between the two brand names America’s Test Kitchen and Cook’s Illustrated. While they publish the same content in different ways, they seem to be two separate brand entities. Yet, both sites have similar top navigation buttons, and they link to each other. (Affordance note here: it is extremely confusing that the link to America’s Test Kitchen simply says “TV Show”. It should say “America’s Test Kitchen” since that what they user sees when they click on it. ) With different URLs, and different logos, it’s confusing that so much of the content is shared. It isn’t clear who’s in charge. This uncertainty weakens the strength of both brands.

Design-wise, the reasons for the confusion are easy to pinpoint. For example, the navigation bars on each site are almost exactly the same—implying that the two are part of the same site, yet the nameplates and URLs are different. Two sites can partner content, they just have to make the relationship visually clear. The links that go to Cook’s Illustrated should be visually differentiated from the ones that are used for America’s Test Kitchen.

The use of totally new navigation on the Cook’s Country magazine site is actually better since it avoids this confusion. Even though it shares a URL, the site is visually very different, and even states in an advertisement “from our sister magazine Cook’s Illustrated,” so that the relationship is clear. It is obvious that Cook’s Country magazine is a separate entity from Cook’s Illustrated.

Conclusion

CooksIllustrated.com has earned high marks in relationship building and readability. Other areas such as community building display a good infrastructure that could really be impressive with a little more promotion. Finally there are some common pitfalls that even the best sites fall into, and content freshness is the Achilles’ heel on this site.

You almost can’t have a dinner party without someone making a “Martha Stewart” comment at some point during the evening. Beyond being a mere household name, Martha Stewart has become synonymous with home decorating, cooking and gardening—bringing beauty to all things domestic. Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Inc (MSLO), is an integrated media company distributing the “art of everyday living” to us in many different channels, broken down into business segments:

• Publishing – Magazines (Martha Stewart Living, Martha Stewart Weddings, Everyday Food, Body + Soul, etc..), Books, DVDs and syndicated newspaper columns
• Broadcasting – MARTHA on the Style Network, Everyday Food on PBS, Martha Stewart Radio on Sirius, etc…
• Merchandising – Home and garden products, Signature paint colors etc…
• Internet/eCommerce – websites sell advertising against content, also direct sales through the Martha Stewart Store and Martha Stewart Flowers

All these channels circle and promote each other, as Martha talks about her paint color used in the kitchen on her show, advertisers buy across the media outlets, content can be re-purposed in books and DVDs, and so on.

Looking at it from this point of view, the usability of the site MarthaStewart.com has a potentially big impact on the other business segments, so how does the website do against the Mequoda Scorecard?

• Great online video and content integration
• Weak usability in navigation and affordance
• Simplistic community tools

The video segments are hands-down the most impressive part of the site. From the first page, visitors can’t help but be sucked in to watching some MARTHA segments on the streaming video. The low points in the review are found in basic usability—the form-over-function values of the designers leaves affordance behind. While there is a nice garden of content to explore, the path is unnecessarily rocky. MarthaStewart.com is also a site with great potential in terms of community. The current online community offerings, message boards, are not sufficient. However the company has announced plans to create new functionalities, much like MySpace, for their target audience of 25- to 45-year-old women. Their strong brand has created an existing community-minded following that is desperate for an outlet. The site re-launch is scheduled for Fall of 2007 and hopefully we’ll come back then to see this scorecard grade greatly improved.

MarthaStewart.com’s Mequoda Scorecard

1. Strategic Intent – B

Integration is something that is said a lot more often than it’s practiced. MSLO uses their rich, media-content library to feed a feast to the guests at MarthaStewart.com. The company sees the website as part of a circle—for example, Internet traffic spikes with mentions on the TV show. The intent of the site is just as much about brand extension as it is about providing content to sell advertising against, and as a vehicle for product sales and subscriptions. But what are the goals of the user?

User Goals:

• Find trusted information, community and entertainment
• Manage Magazine subscriptions, Subscribe, Renew
• Buy branded products

MarthaStewart.com is designed to have all of the actions present, but they are not optimized. The first-time visitor will get that there’s content here right away, but the other two aspects are not so obvious. For example, there are plenty of content entry points, graphic headlines, streaming video and beautiful images, and the integration between TV, radio and magazines comes together like a multi-course meal. The user task of subscribing/managing subscriptions is subtly served up with a link to “Subscription Services” and Subscribe house ads. The greatest weakness comes under Sales. The store is linked only from the homepage, with a separate URL MarthaStewartStore.com. The lack of promotion and limited offerings in the store seem more like a bunch of daisies than a bouquet of roses.

2. Content Webification – A

MarthaStewart.com makes good on the promise of integrated media. Almost before you know it, you’re watching video segments on how to make a great salad dressing (tip: squeeze in half a fresh orange at the last minute). The content is available to the user in multiple formats: text (articles), images (photographs and slide shows), video (MARTHA TV show) and audio (on Sirius radio, 24/7). In the plans for the re-launch they promise to improve Search so that a user will see results from all the different media (good idea, the search function was a bit undercooked).

The content is available to the user in multiple formats.

3. Relationship Building – C

MarthaStewart.com could do a much better job of building the relationship with users. The site does offer a newsletter but it doesn’t do much to encourage visitors to sign up. It’s more like a plate of wheat crackers than a plate of decorated sugar cookies. For example: “Sign up for our free newsletter” is in the upper right and there is “Welcome! Please sign in.” along the top. It would be better to have a colorful graphic or pop-up ad with a premium. Nowadays, a user needs to be given a better reason, a juicier teaser, to hand over their email address than just the words “free newsletter.”

It would be better to have a colorful graphic or pop-up ad with a premium.

4. Community Building – C

MarthaStewart.com is very weak in this area, and they know it. As mentioned above, there are plans for a re-launch which promises community tools on the level of MySpace. It’s badly needed as currently there are rather messy, old-fashioned message boards that are hard to navigate around. Even so, many of the boards are busy enough, with the more popular boards enjoying daily posts. I look forward to the site improvements that I know will be wholeheartedly embraced by this loyal audience.

5. Persistent Navigation – D

I think someone at MarthaStewart.com must know what persistent navigation is, because there are moments when it slips in—probably an oversight. From the homepage MarthaStewart.com, every link brings the user to a totally new navigation scheme. To be fair, the strategy was probably that of a gateway to the specific sub-sites such as MARTHA, Everyday Food or Body + Soul, and within each of these the navigation is persistent. But as they all fall within the MarthaStewart.com URL, the result is a cut-and-paste, student-scrapbook feel. There are too many times that a link will change everything that I’m looking at and the experience is very jolting. With such inconsistent navigation, the ‘Back’ button is your best friend on MarthaStewart.com.

From the homepage MarthaStewart.com, every link brings the user to a totally new navigation scheme.

6. Task Depth – A

MarthaStewart.com makes it easy for a user to fulfill tasks.

A short scenario. There’s a 34-year-old woman who is searching online at work for a recipe for tonight’s dinner. She finds one she likes at MarthaStewart.com, and then emails it to her home email address. When she’s online at home, she thinks to herself that she likes the site and should sign up for a newsletter so that she doesn’t forget to go back now and then. So she clicks back to the site, and signs up for the newsletter. While she’s there, she decides to also subscribe to that new Blueprint magazine, because her house is getting a bit small and she wants to start thinking about the next move. She subscribes, and then starts dinner with the recipe that started it all.

We have tasks including finding content, emailing to a friend, signing up for a newsletter and subscribing to a magazine. All successfully accomplished on MarthaStewart.com

7. Affordance – D

The inconsistent affordance on MarthaStewart.com makes an already confusing site much worse. Some of the bad design decisions include:

• Links in the same (darker) color as the background color.
• Links in grey, all caps.
• Color, all-caps headlines that look like links but aren’t.
• No change in link for hover or visited pages.

Usability has taken a back seat to beauty here—form over function is the rule. To expand on some of the bullets above: the navigation links are just a darker tone of the “Agave” green on the navigation bar. This means that a lot of people will have trouble seeing these primary navigation links. To be certain that the greatest number of people will be able to see and use the links, the designer has to consider contrast, monitor variability and the differing ability levels of color perception. Another problem is that some links don’t look like links, such as all-cap grey text seen intermittently on the site for global navigation. After establishing color, all-cap text as a link style, it feels almost like a trick when the site presents text in this format that then isn’t a link within the center block.

Parts of the site do follow some Web conventions such as blue underlined links, and the buttons to operate the online TV are standard, so there must be some designers who know what they’re doing in the room. Maybe in the next redesign the beauty police will work with them instead of ignoring them.

Another problem is that some links don’t look like links, such as all-cap grey text seen intermittently on the site for global navigation. After establishing color, all-cap text as a link style, it feels almost like a trick when the site presents text in this format that then isn’t a link within the center block.

8. Labeling and Language – A

Is there jargon in the worlds of gardening, cooking, home decorating and wedding planning? Theoretically there must be, but Martha isn’t stooping to that level. She is the ultimate hostess, never using language that would alienate a guest. The brand is at base about how-to, helping others to make their own lives more beautiful. Any overly erudite word choices that closed the doors to a tentative Martha-in-the-making would ruin the entire Martha Stewart promise. Simple, elegant and fun, MarthaStewart.com is selective, but never snobby.

9. Readability (Content Density) – A

Reading a Martha Stewart Magazine is more a visual experience than a intellectual one, MarthaStewart.com maintains this style with a higher graphic-to-text ratio than most content sites. While sometimes disappointed at the short text blocks, the articles are very readable and the images generally stunning and unique. The photo galleries, with large high-resolution photos, are an especially enjoyable example of online content. The nemesis of readability—advertising —is kept in the sidelines, with an occasional TV-style commercial break. Content can be pleasantly consumed in the well-balanced pages.

10. Organization – A

The layout includes a standard three columns, broken by a nameplate and leaderboard at the top. Marketing elements—either internal or external—are included in all four quadrants. Navigation and primary content links are placed on the nameplate and along a side navigation column, as well as deeper content links within the center content block. A standard eye-path across the screen would see all these elements without having to strain. As a woman known for well organized garden sheds, it’s not surprising that she didn’t let the site fall down in this category.

11. Content Freshness – B

Daily updates keep MarthaStewart.com a fresh experience encouraging frequent visits. New content isn’t explicitly promoted by a date stamp (although it should be), but it’s visually obvious with a new picture in the center of the screen every day, and new pictures in the lower section boxes. A few blogs can also be found deeper in the site content. As Martha Stewart comes to mind first as a monthly magazine, it’s particularly impressive that they’ve embraced the Web-world’s daily requirements.

12. Load Time – C

MarthaStewart.com downloads at a speed of 33 seconds on a 56K modem. The page uses minimal scripts, so the real time hog here is the graphics. A little attention to the number and size of images could bring this time down to a more seemly level. It really isn’t very polite to ask your audience to wait while you get dressed.

13. Aesthetics – B

This brand is all about looks—and not just average prettiness, but a particular type of tasteful, attractive, everyday Beauty is being sold with every publication and product. An ugly site would be in complete contradiction to the entire customer value proposition. The attractive, subtle color palette, and the liberal use of beautiful photographs start MarthaStewart.com down that path. There is something slightly off though, a little too much white space around ads, graphic elements that don’t line up well, a general lack of cohesion—pages that have slightly ratty-looking bottoms. The site, in general, looks and feels like the Martha Stewart brand, but I can’t help but think it falls a little short of the true, details-matter Martha standard. In other words—the brand here calls for above and beyond the ordinary aesthetically, and it doesn’t quite reach it.

14. Brand Preference – B

Consumers know and trust the Martha Stewart brand. The success of Martha Stewart-branded flower arrangements in a competitive, online flower selling space is an example of the power of this asset. That’s why it’s a pity that the site lets this particular category slip. For the most part the logo is consistent with the URL, the user always knows who’s publishing this content, but there are some bad user experiences as well. For example, when on Body + Soul (which is under the MarthaStewart.com URL), one of the top navigation bar links brings up (with a new URL) Dr. Andrew Weil’s Self Healing. After a bit of reading you can find out that these two sites have a content partnership. But the average user doesn’t care about that. “How did I get here?” or “Is Dr. Weil published by Martha Stewart?” are the kind of questions that might pop into the mind after this user experience. Hardly a good thing.

Conclusion

MarthaStewart.com stands out for integration of TV and magazine content online, but otherwise the site is doing poorly on some key usability guidelines. Community tools, navigation, affordance and relationship building are some areas that could use a good coat of paint. Hopefully the re-launched site in 2007 follows up on the high-quality promise of the strong Martha Stewart brand.

Knitter’s Review is a six-year-old site run by a small group of enthusiasts. Their story in the About pages tells of publishing veteran Clara Parkes, who left the rat race where she produced large scale websites and escaped to the peace of rural Maine to focus on doing something she loved. She has two compatriots who represent the operational and technical ends of KnittersReview.com (KR), and the support of her friends, family and postmistress, but not much else. In other words, a true hands-on, do-it-yourself success story.

The success of the site is readily apparent in the plethora of forum posts. This is the real deal, a community site that has been brought together via KR’s weekly editorial product reviews. The site makes its revenues through advertising and their own store. It is a true Mequoda network that is run without a large publishing company behind it—just good old-fashioned know-how.

KnittersReview.com follows the Hub model, with three spokes:

• Editorial—Knitter’s Review Magazine
• Ecommerce—Knitter’s Review Boutique
• Community—Knitter’s Review Forum

Each of these sections of the network serve a different business purpose (selling advertising, selling products, bringing in traffic) and therefore require a specific site design and navigation. Since KR is relatively small, we can cover all three micro-sites in a single review and take a look at some particular issues like global navigation, persistent navigation and branding.

KnittersReview.com’s Mequoda Scorecard

1. Strategic Intent – A

The site is obvious for what it is on first glance—a knitting enthusiast site. The homepage shows the three sections with bullets to make it clear what is available and how to get it. Magazine, Boutique and Forum are all clearly presented.

People come to KR because they have a love of knitting. They want to learn more about it, talk to others who feel the same way, ask questions and get honest opinions, it’s just to generally take a break and enjoy. This means for the site, that content has to be free, participating has to be easy and upsell and advertising has to be carefully managed. If the site looks and acts too slick, they’ll lose the audience. The site of course does want to make a profit, so the balance of the revenu-producing activities with the service provided to the audience has to be just right. There are dozens of other knitting sites out there, so the quality of the product (in this case the size and strength of the community and the honesty of the editorial reviews) is KR’s competitive advantage.

The homepage shows the three sections with bullets to make it clear what is available and how to get it. Magazine, Boutique and Forum are all clearly presented.

2. Content Webification – B

Knitter’s Review is simple webified text and graphics. While the site maintains a high level of content quality with extensive, free and unbiased information, there is still a lot of growing room to fully take advantage of the interactivity made easy by Web technology. For example, as of this writing the “First Audio Report from the 2006 Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival” was available on the site. If KR turned this into a regular podcast, or even a videopodcast, it would expand audience reach.

3. Relationship Building – B

The free weekly newsletter is offered on almost every page. In the magazine site, the subscribe link appears as a link in the editorial at the top or bottom of a story and in the side navigation. However in the forum and boutique sites, the newsletter is not well promoted. While the store certainly won’t put a newsletter subscribe action in front of a purchase action, it misses the opportunity to opt-in buyers in the checkout process.

Getting an email address, permission for future contact and dropping a cookie to create a personal experience for each user is essential in building relationships with users. In a small site like KR without a large advertising budget, building a relationship to encourage repeat visits and keep each new user that finds the site is even more important.

The free weekly newsletter is offered on almost every page.

4. Community Building – B

There is the stereotype in my mind of knitting as a solitary activity, most likely performed in a rocking chair by a window. Browsing the KR forums reminds me just how foolish stereotypes are. One of the clearest examples of real-world community building is seen in the “Seeking Nearby Knitters” forum thread. Knitters from all over North America find each other locally to meet up in knitting groups. If no local knitter happens to read the post of say, a lonely knitter in Montréal, then another kind knitter will post a comment on how she has a friend in Montréal, and here’s a link to the “very active knitting community” there.

A forum is a great way to create community without breaking the bank on development costs. With private messages and IM integrated into the forum, there are plenty of ways for the far flung to start close conversations. The score is only a B here, because the forum isn’t well promoted across the network. Forums can also be daunting to new users, so clearly inviting new visitors to join must be part of the process.

5. Persistent Navigation – C

The network of three KR sites do not make it easy for users to jump between them. In the Knitter’s Review Boutique, I couldn’t even find a link that went to either the Magazine or Forum sites. The Knitter’s Review logo on the Forum site does include links back to the other two in the network, however it has a different look from the logo and navigation on the main and Magazine homepage.

In as much as persistent navigation is a tricky task for small sites, KR has done well by separating the conflicting navigation needs into the three sites: the Magazine, the Boutique and the Forum. Each microsite has specific navigation schemes that are particular to the purpose of the site. Because each purpose is clear to the user (buying, reading, community) the change in navigation will also make sense. But that also means that the global navigation is all the more important if the site wants to take full advantage of the traffic generated by one part of the site—say the forums, to increase conversions on other parts of the network, say sales in the boutique or subscriptions to the newsletter. Therefore persistent global navigation is just as important as the navigation within each site.

The Knitter’s Review logo on the Forum site does include links back to the other two in the network, however it has a different look from the logo and navigation on the main site.

6. Task Depth – B

What type of tasks will a user take on KnittersReview.com? The usual suspects—signing up for a newsletter, posting on the forum, buying something, and of course, searching for information. The newsletter and the forum were standard short forms and simple. The forum has a quirky down-home kind of feel to it, sort of handmade more than automated in the method chosen to handle passwords and usernames. The purchase process, which is more professionally done, is basic and painless.

The straggling thread hanging from the bottom of the sweater is Search. The site uses the Google search plugin, which will search the local site or the Web, depending on the radio button selected by the user. This works fine. The trouble is the placement. Why is the search box placed below the fold, below the ads, way down on the right hand side? Search is the favorite activity of most users. This site has six years of knitting content, there’s every reason to suspect that users will find what they’re looking for faster on search than by browsing.

The straggling thread hanging from the bottom of the sweater is Search. The trouble is the placement. Why is the search box placed below the fold, below the ads, way down on the right hand side?

7. Affordance – B

KnittersReview.com would be getting an A on affordance if not for the random use of off-site hyperlinks. In general, links are blue underlined or bold, they say what they are and the color conventions for visited and active links are used. Graphic buttons are used for actions such as Buy and Add to Cart (I suspect these are third-party generically generated buttons. Hey, it works.)

Where the ability of the user to get what they expect falters is within an article in the magazine. In an effort to be helpful, the site links many of the words in an article to an outside website. This isn’t even a new window—it’s in the same browser window and all of a sudden the poor user finds themselves looking at a definition of an Ewe on Wikipedia, or even worse, on a totally different knitting site. While encyclopedia definitions and related articles (even from competitors) are nice additions, the link should visually indicate to the user that clicking it will take them off of KR. These links can be just as useful at the end of the article, clearly indicating that it is an off-site link. The exception to this rule is when the entire editorial article is about the off-site link, for example a calendar entry where the link goes to the homepage of the event mentioned.

8. Labeling and Language – A

All groups develop their own language and knitters are no exception. The keywords and phrases that indicate authority and a high level of expertise in product reviews and store items were sprinkled throughout the writing. This gains the respect and trust of the audience. Some knitting keywords include “fiber,” “gauge” and “needles.” I’m delving a bit into content here, but the site does a great job of by mixing education with audience-centric language in an article where seven different types of needles are reviewed (I now know the relative attributes of nickel-plated aluminum knitting needles vs swallow casein needles). This brings the keywords into the editorial, establishing expert credentials, and at the same time educates newcomers without scaring them off.

9. Readability (Content Density) – A

KR uses a fixed three column layout on a white background with black text. White backgrounds always enhance a page’s text readability, and in KR it also enhances the images, acting like a gallery wall. The index pages for each section include a blurb for a featured article with a graphic, and the rest of the page is used for topic navigation, visually balanced with bold subheads and bullets. The articles themselves are also uncluttered, with a product shot (most articles are reviews). A very nice layout feature includes key facts bolded out in the right sidebar. There, adspace on the left column doesn’t conflict with the readability.

10. Organization – A

The marketing quadrants in KR are balanced well. In almost all sections of the site, primary tasks such as content navigation, and marketing tasks such as internal and external advertising, appear in all four quadrants.

11. Content Freshness – B

New content is published weekly via the newsletter. On the site the “New This Week” navigation link takes the user to the weekly emailed newsletter presented on the site directly. The forums include daily content via user posts, which encourages the user’s feeling of immediacy—the need to return to the site frequently. A daily tip or a blog from the editorial side would bring this grade to an A.

12. Load Time – A

Knitter’s Review hasn’t let the Web get them all knotted up in a snarl, this site loads fast—on a 56K modem, load time was a speedy 7.3 seconds. And here I thought knitters were a patient bunch.

13. Aesthetics – B

If you’re into knitting, you’re into texture, color, fiber—you’re into the look and feel of things in a way that goes beyond the usual meaning of that phrase. KR serves this value in some ways: the photos of the yarns reviewed really do give a good sense of color and touch in a way that’s hard to do digitally. But the rest of the site is too bland and basic. This is great from a readability perspective, but sites need to please the user aesthetically too—they need to match the values of the audience on a subconscious, almost carnal level. A quick check at competitor’s sites shows a bit more attention to color palettes and layout.

14. Brand Preference – A

Three sites—the Magazine, the Boutique and the Forum—all hold together and support each other under the brand Knitter’s Review. The KR network exhibits this continuity with the logo and color scheme. If you look closely the logo actually changes very slightly from one site to another, which is a bit sloppy, but then maybe contributes to the handmade feel of the site. The overall sense of a single brand is strong, with consistency in editorial voice, aesthetics and subject matter. The subtle brand message—that this is the site of a fellow knitter who loves the subject and will give honest and considered reviews—is not strongly pushed into the user’s head. It simply comes through in the quality of the content.

Conclusion

Not having a big budget and dozens of programmers, marketers and editorial staff doesn’t stand in the way of a smart enthusiast publishing a great site. KR is a great Web-product for the target audience of knitters. It’s easy to use, easy to read, easy to interact with and the brand has integrity. Success isn’t always about flash and big names, sometimes a good homespun yarn is all you really need.