November 09, 2007
Mouldy fruit
Want to know what the homepage of a mobile operator in terminal strategic decline looks like? Just click the thumbnail popup. It’s worth scrolling down.
OK, you write the rest of the article. List all the things wrong with their website in the comments. (There’s a really good one if you look hard.) So many to choose from!
Posted by Martin Geddes at 06:02 PMTrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.telepocalypse.net/cgi-sys/cgiwrap/mgeddes/MT/mt-tb.cgi/890.
It's not visible in that shot but my favourite bit of crap interaction on that site is when you select 'mobile account' (as opposed to the other selection of broadband account, already -1 but it gets worse). You get taken to another page where you need to select between... mobile and broadband accounts before you get to a login box.
Terrible.
Posted by: at November 9, 2007 07:10 PMwhere can i buy the iphone on the orange network? i'll bet 02 is really happy with that free advertising on the orange website--if you can find anything, that is!
Posted by: at November 12, 2007 03:45 AMHeh - Orange iPhone anyone? Thought not
This is exactly why I use precisely 0 of the online services available from my operator. I work in the industry and can't work it out.
Posted by: at November 12, 2007 10:30 AMI quite like the tinytext "Looking for Orange Business Services? Might be somewhere around here, praps"
Posted by: at November 12, 2007 11:34 AMI think I found it! Hot Fashion at M & S
Posted by: at November 13, 2007 12:07 PMOkay, I'll bite. Start with search -- no site search option!!! The best and most profitable website on the internet is google and the orange site is about as unlike google as possible. Long load times and no organization.
It violates just about every tenet of Don't Make Me Think or Thirty Website Wins (http://www.isp-planet.com/hosting/2007/website_wins.html).
One of the most interesting pieces of advice is to avoid placing content in an area that usually has a banner ad because visitors will ignore it.
Formatting is important -- that news section is delightfully awful.
It's also nice that the company is competing with its own bingo advertiser.
How many of the shopping partners offer purchase from mobile phone? I hear Geddes thought this service up during the days of the telegraph but my source is my own memory and is therefore unrelible.
But to me the single worst error on the page is the number of times the word "e-mail" appears. This is website designed by committee -- and each committee placed the word on the page once. I counted three, but surely they should have added a fourth instance in the "my account" box?!
Posted by: at November 14, 2007 09:39 PM"disasters happen every day" - brilliant
Posted by: at November 25, 2007 09:47 PMHey Martin,
Have you seen the guy-falling-over (bouncing on trampoline) image that vodafone's using? http://www.vodafone.com/hub_page.html
Thought you'd enjoy it. . .
Posted by: at December 6, 2007 09:06 PM