The following are some of the thoughts I’ve had. I welcome comments, for or against any of these. I also asked the Twittersphere for thoughts and have thrown in some of the resulting ideas from that too.

And of course, for some organisations these ideas won’t be so radical. If you’re already employing some of the ideas mentioned here, I’d love to hear from you.

As always, these are my own personal reflections. They are not endorsed by, nor will they necessarily be adopted by, my employer.

1. Make it public

My organisation is UK local government. We are subject to the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act, and have a duty to publish (or at least provide on request) certain information that we hold.

Why not, therefore, make our Intranet public? It would greatly reduce the necessity for FOI requests, because most of our policies, procedures and data would be freely available. It would also mean the council would be seen as being open, honest and responsible.

Equally, it would prevent staff thinking that the Intranet is ‘a safe place’ to store inappropriate or irrelevant information, and would most likely result in an increase in quality and currency.

The natural extension to that is to do away with an “intranet” altogether and incorporate such info into your public website or some form of extranet (thanks to @lelil for that suggestion, and for the link to @CarlHaggerty‘s post on the death of the local authority intranet).

2. Forget about structure

When it comes to Intranets and information architecture, there are no right answers. Our staff are hugely diverse in their roles, technical abilities and interests – we can’t possibly cater for them all equally. Any attempt to impose a rigid structure is fruitless – people will still get lost.

Also, people are more likely to use site search nowadays, and if you get that right, why even bother with wasting days or weeks trying to construct the perfect site structure? Intelligent search, with comprehensive tagging of content (crowd-sourced so that users can suggest additional tags to aid future searches), should make locating content a breeze – no need for endless drilling down into subcategories or mind-bending lateral thinking to try to guess where someone might have put something. Tags are ideal because they permit an infinitely customisable taxonomy.

3. Embrace Web 2.0

Like many organisations, mine is still quite nervous about Web 2.0. But the benefits are clear and we can no longer afford to ignore this important tool for discussion, collaboration and sharing. As @JaneOD points out – Intranets are often only “one-way” communication. Far better to allow staff to upload their own content (including videos etc) and share their experiences.

So why not embrace Web 2.0 and reap the rewards of a hyper-connected workforce? It needn’t cost the earth – many of the most popular technologies are free. And if you integrate these systems into your Intranet, you’ll get a far higher take-up which will boost the usefulness of the tools even further. I’d love to see our organisation use something like Present.ly or Yammer (corporate versions of Twitter) so that staff can quickly report what they’re doing and see what others are up to – there’s often a great deal of duplication of effort in large organisations and this could help put the right people in touch with each other.

Introduce blogs and forums to get people talking more, and make it easy for people to view and contribute. Utilise ‘people directories’ to help people identify the right people for the job, as well as to nurture greater social interaction. Encourage people to post their interests and areas of expertise, to further facilitate collaboration.

4. Crowdsource

Permit staff to comment on posts or pages to capitalise on their knowledge and experience. Additionally, if a page is wrong or out of date, users can use this function to quickly report this and get it fixed.

Going even further, why not make the entire Intranet a Wiki? You could always lock down areas that really shouldn’t be changed (legal info, for instance) but for everything else, let your staff build the Intranet that they want. This was actually a thought that senior managers in my own department had themselves, and I know that it’s been suggested many times before (thanks to @whitingx for the link to an article exploring the use of wikis for an intranet).

5. Get tough

A proposal by James Robertson of Step Two Designs suggests that Intranets are all too often an after-thought – somewhere where you simply archive documents that you’ve already sent out via email anyway. This devalues the Intranet, perpetuates the bad practice of sending out documents en masse, and leads people to think that important info will be emailed so they need not bother ever checking the Intranet.

The solution, he suggests, is to refuse to publish information to an Intranet if it has already gone out via another method. For me, this could look like sour grapes on the part of the webteam, and is likely to be taken in the wrong light for that reason, but it does hint at a real problem around how Intranets are often a second thought.

I do like the idea of getting tough with those who still haven’t bought into the Intranet as a key business tool. Organisations invest large amounts of time and money in developing Intranets, and failure to use them properly results in huge inefficiencies. We can no longer allow those who don’t get it to prevent it from being a success.

Being tough should extend to the content itself, too. Dump anything out of date, and impose strict policies to ensure nothing goes stale. Cut out the middle man – if something’s not right, go to the senior managers who have overall responsibility for the content.

And don’t let internal politics or egos take hold of the reins either.

If you have other ideas for how to radicalise Intranets, do leave a message below.

In doing so, I was surprised by the variety of approaches taken by these best-practice sites. I had hoped for some clear trends and design methodologies, but instead found some striking differences. Of course, the presentation of the homepage is only a small part of the story on any website, and given that many users will come in via search engines (and thus possibly never even see your homepage), any analysis should be proportional.

Nevertheless, visual comparison of the 11 4-star websites does offer up some useful inspiration and the similarities have plenty to tell us.

Note: screenshots taken in March 2010

On this page:

• The 4 star websites
  • Allerdale Borough Council
  • Brent Council
  • Buckinghamshire County Council
  • Cambridgeshire County Council
  • East Sussex County Council
  • Exeter City Council
  • Newcastle upon Tyne City Council
  • Oxfordshire County Council
  • Salford City Council
  • South Tyneside Metropolitan Borough Council
  • Worthing Borough Council
• Similarities
• Surprises

The 4 star websites

Allerdale Borough Council

www.allerdale.gov.uk

Brent Council

www.brent.gov.uk

Also see the comments below for a link to Brent’s upcoming, minimal version.

Buckinghamshite County Council

www.buckscc.gov.uk

Cambridgeshire County Council

www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk

East Sussex County Council

www.eastsussex.gov.uk

Exeter City Council

www.exeter.gov.uk

Newcastle upon Tyne City Council

www.newcastle.gov.uk

Oxfordshire County Council

www.oxfordshire.gov.uk

Salford City Council

www.salford.gov.uk

South Tyneside Metropolitan Borough Council

www.southtyneside.info

Worthing Borough Council

www.worthing.gov.uk

Similarities

• 7 of the sites had clear links to RSS feeds
• All had links to latest news
• 9 of the sites put the main categories on the right-hand side
• Most had localisation features – often via a postcode search or similar

Surprises

• The length of the homepages was a surprise, with some stretching to three screens long (with a 800px high viewport).
• Many of the pages appeared quite text-heavy.

Is there anything else you think is notable about these screenshots? Do you have a favourite? Let me know via the Comments section below…

Disclaimer – I haven’t had the chance to read the full #BC10 report yet. I hope to add my own perspectives to this blog once I have. What follows is a summary of John’s presentation on the report and what he thinks it means for local authorities.

Summarising the report, John spoke about the negative headlines that we can expect to see coming out of this year’s findings, which stated:

‘Given the urgent need for councils to deliver more for less, it is really disappointing that the performance of this lowest cost service delivery channel seems to have stagnated over the last year. This should not be taken as a criticism of web managers, many of whom do an excellent job with limited resources. Rather, responsibility lies with councils’ top management, many of whom still do not recognise the key role of the website in reducing corporate costs through the efficient management of customer enquiries.’

Martin Greenwood, SOCITM Insight programme manager

Indeed, such headlines are already cropping up:

• Local government web use ‘disappointing’ (BBC News)
• Most councils not yet ready to support self service (eGov Monitor)
• Slightly Better Connected: Annual survey paints a gloomy picture (UK AuthorITy)
• Council Website not ready to ease the cuts (Local Government Chronicle)

But John was quick to reiterate the point that the criticism isn’t aimed at the hard-working web teams across the country, but rather the management figures who are holding back the development of this vital channel. The middle management strata, John suggested, is full of people who simply ‘don’t get the web’ – and no matter how dedicated your webteams are, or how much buy-in you have from the very top, this is always going to be a major problem.

Why is the web so important in local gov?

Now more than ever, the web must be seen as a vital channel for service delivery. With local authority cutbacks looking like they may be as drastic as 20% in some areas, the need for self service is critical. This is closely tied into the concept of avoidable contact – where people help themselves to information online at a far lower cost that requesting it directly from a member of staff.

And the figures are impressive. SOCITM estimate that whilst a web transaction costs an authority just 39p on average, the equivalent transaction by telephone costs £3.21 and a face to face encounter sets us back a whopping £8.23 (Source: SOCITM Insight, Dec 2009). Of course, some people will always want, or need, to use the more traditional channels, but the web is a vital addition. And currently, despite being the cheapest channel, the web continues to also be the one that delivers the highest levels of failure and dissatisfaction.

Taking actual stats from SOCITM’s Insight take-up service, John showed how, year on year, people appear to be finding less of what they want on local gov sites, with satisfaction levels also dropping. In terms of numbers, one metropolitan district had a failure rate of 36% (people who said they did not find what they wanted). This translated to 43,018 visitors, and if we assume all of these people were forced to make contact with the authority in a different way, the cost implications are huge.

How good are local gov websites?

The SOCITM process assesses whether a site is useful, usable and used. It uses a main survey of 120 questions, carried out by 12 reviewers, with 5 supplementary surveys and additional data (for example, from accessibility tests carried out with the RNIB). A total of 433 local authority websites were assessed.

The report uses a new 4-star ranking system, with 9 essential criteria:

• Information
• Links elsewhere
• Currency
• Transactions
• Use of A to Z list
• Use of search engine
• Navigation
• Use of location
• Accessibility

The report is intended to help councils understand the state of their own development, and with nearly 50% of sites getting just 2 stars, there is plenty of room for improvement. Only 12 got the full 4 stars this year.

Stuart Harrison’s mash-up of Better Connected 2010 results

Best practices

John talked us through a number of good examples of sites that had done well, and reported on feedback from the reviewers which praised sites for:

• clear, consistent navigation
• good A-Zs
• high standards of content
• a pleasurable overall experience
• useful eServices
• good locational information

John used Allerdale BC, East Sussex CC and South Tyneside MBC to highlight some of these good points – these all got 4 stars and are worth a look.

Allerdale Borough Council - getting it right, says SOCITM

Changing to a web culture

John mentioned a number of things that we need to be doing to bring about the cultural change necessary to support the web as the principal customer service channel.

Perhaps the most fundamental is to “think customer”. The web should be 100% about the user and their needs. Everything we do on the web should be for our citizens. This potentially means rethinking a lot of the content we currently offer.

Also, service providers need to “think web”. Posting info to the website shouldn’t be an after thought, or a box-ticking exercise. It should be at the heart of everyone’s processes.

Next, we need to advocate the web to our colleagues, who in turn need to advocate it to their service users. We need to sell the benefits, and promote the channel wherever possible. An obvious example is if someone receives a phone call about something that is available on the web – use that opportunity to promote the website, so that next time the contact can be avoided and the user can benefit from all the other content on there.

The customer journey

There was time for a look at a few more good and bad examples of content, before a final consideration of the customer journey. Wycombe DC was given as a good example of delivering a strong focus on task management – enabling citizens to quickly do what they need to do online.

Salford’s postcode search was another good example of providing additional functionality, pulling in maps, democratic info, refuse collection times, local facilities such as schools and community centres, whilst also linking to key online tasks such as council tax and planning applications. Such “find my nearest…” searches are becoming increasingly useful as data can be brought in from a number of sources, and are a great way of presenting a broad range of relevant information on a local gov website.

Finally, a mention of the fact that the customer journey may go beyond our own site. What if the service is provided by a different organisation? Are we providing links to related info and other sites, to help our customers get the information they need, wherever it may be? This can have its own challenges in terms of sustainability and accuracy, but is another example of providing an excellent, and complete, customer service online.

John’s presentation came at an opportune time – we are currently working towards implementing a replacement system for our websites and taking a long, hard look at both our web content and our customer’s experience of interacting with us online. We may have only got 2 stars this year, but I look forward to seeing where we rank in BC2011.

More thoughts on the Better Connected 2010 report to follow soon. In the meantime, local gov bods can log onto Communities of Practice to follow some interesting #BC10 discussions there.

One particular point that will raise eyebrows is the continued advocacy of separate sites for mobile devices. There is an ongoing debate about the pros and cons of such an approach, brought to the fore by Neilsen’s post last February comparing Mobile Web 2009 with Desktop Web 1998, and concluding that a separate site is best. Many of us were not convinced, and as Henny Swan argued at the time:

It also hints at repeating the mistakes of desktop web design circa 1998 where we thought the answer was to design for one browser, use proprietary technology, build text only websites for disabled users…the list goes on. So let’s not make that same mistake and instead fast forward to one of the principles of good web design that dug us out of the dark hole of 1998: progressive enhancement.

Henny Swan: Progressive Enhancement for mobile

Henny described how a ‘one site fits all’ approach can be achieved using media queries, and it’s certainly a far more attractive solution than designing and maintaining separate sites.

But this all relates to websites in general, rather than specifically to Intranets, and I was interested to look closer at the suggestion of a separate mobile Intranet.

Intranet on the move?

Mobile Intranets – a unique case?

Intranets serve a very specific business purpose, and for a defined set of users, so the scope for delivering a useful mobile version is arguably better than with a public site:

1. You’ll have a far clearer idea of who would want to access a mobile version, and for what purpose.
2. You’ll also have a good idea of the devices being used to access the Intranet, assuming they are company-issue.
3. Finally, the potential advantages that a tailored mobile version could deliver to staff are tangible and might justify the time and effort required to build and maintain.

Neilsen points out a couple of potential problems – one being that most staff will already be in an office (and therefore presumably have desktop access) and the other being the possible lack of technical expertise at operating handheld devices. The first point is simply part of the business case – if you have a significant amount of staff needing Intranet access out of the office, then you have a compelling business case. The second point is a training issue – and in fact many companies might equally observe that some of their staff aren’t skilled enough to operate their desktop computer properly either. If the business case exists for such usage, either from a desktop or a mobile device, then training should be in place to support that. Neilsen also observes that devices are becoming far easier to use, reducing this risk.

Neilsen also points to a move towards “anytime, anyplace” access. This is certainly true of many large companies who are promoting flexible working options, and is likely to be a crucial element of any business case for creating a mobile-friendly Intranet.

Working on the move

So let’s assume we do want a separate mobile Intranet. What will it look like?

For a start, how do we access it? Will the user be required to log-in? That would seem sensible – an Intranet is, by its very nature, not for public consumption, and the risk of the employee’s mobile device being lost or stolen means that security must be considered paramount. Measures such as automatic time-outs might also be necessary, as well as preventing log-in details from being saved by the device.

Once logged in, what would we want to see? This is where a bit of research will prove invaluable. Find out what the key tasks are and make them easy to access. Accessing staff directories seems to be an obvious one, for example, as well as receiving any urgent news or alerts. Customisation would be ideal here, allowing people to compile a list of common tasks and links.

Opening documents

My organisation’s Intranet is probably fairly typical in that it has a massive amount of information available as downloads – PDFs, Word documents, Powerpoint presentations etc. Whilst some newer generation devices can handle these quite well, it’s important to remember that they can cause issues when downloading and opening (because of large file sizes, incompatible formats etc). As with any website, any key information should always be available as a web page as well as a download, and a company moving towards a mobile-friendly Intranet must keep this in mind.

Is your Intranet awash with downloads?

Apps

Neilsen mentions one team that developed a dedicated iPhone app, rather than building a separate site, to optimise the design for mobile users. This sounds like a perfect compromise, but only if you have full control over the devices that your staff are using, and only if those devices are advanced enough to support such apps. We’re not all lucky enough to get iPhones from our employers, so this may not be realistic for many, but the use of apps is nevertheless a good example of improving usability for mobile users.

Publishing from a distance?

As a web author for my organisation, I can see tremendous benefit in being able to not only access the Intranet on the move, but also to update the pages too. Mobile access to the publishing environment could be a killer feature, either via a browser-based interface or using a dedicated app. Again, the security risks of this are obvious, so measures would need to be in place (such as multiple log-ins or gated publishing requiring third-party approval). But the potential could be huge – especially in emergencies or out of office hours.

Standalone systems

One issue that may be harder to conquer is the fact that many Intranets are also a portal to numerous standalone systems and databases. Staff directories, forums, pay systems, HR processes, online forms, room bookings etc – these are very often delivered as separate products and making them available to a mobile device could be far trickier than simply re-formatting some webpages. Any business case would need to look at the practicalities of this and decide how crucial these additional systems are to an employee on the move.

Adaptability

One of the most convincing arguments against designing mobile-specific sites is that devices are constantly updating and advancing, and that there are very few universal standards to design to. Even if you know what devices your staff are using today, it could be that they are upgraded far sooner than your website will be. Any attempt to design a mobile-specific site would need to have sufficient adaptability to ensure that the next corporate upgrade of devices does not leave you with a useless mobile site. I’ve seen huge problems with companies designing Intranets to suit their dominant corporate browser version (for example, IE6) which then holds back any attempt to refresh that browser later on, in the fear that their sites will break (which, in the case of IE6-friendly sites, will almost certainly be the case).

Mobiles - evolving fast (image by True Blue Titan*)

Conclusion

For the reasons explored above, it’s more likely that a mobile Intranet will be a stripped-down version of its desktop self for reasons of practicality, rather than usability, although there is an argument for offering a tailored design to streamline the most common tasks undertaken by staff on the move. This is unlikely to be successful without significant investment of time and expertise, however, so a strong business case is crucial to put focus on what is to be achieved.

Failing that, designing your Intranet with mobile-specific styles, or at least adhering to common best practice and web standards, will help to ensure that anyone logging on whilst away from the desk will still get to what they want.

* Phone Evolution image is a derivative of a photograph by True Blue Titan, used under the Creative Commons licence

Browser sizes as an overlay

What this shows is that, for example:

• only 1% of users have to scroll to see all of the main banner on my site
• 80% can see the Latest News box in its entirety, without scrolling
• Half of users have to scroll to read the Good Causes section

That’s all very interesting, and Google cites a good example where a call to action on a page (in their case, a “download” button) was below the fold for 10% of users. However, the logic gets a little fuzzier when they state:

Using this visualization, Bruno confirmed that about 10% of users couldn’t see the download button without scrolling, and thus never noticed it.

Introducing Google Browser Size – Google Code Blog

Spot the error – the assumption that users will not notice things below the fold.

Thinking beyond the fold

This assumption doesn’t ring true with my experience of user testing, where people will almost always scroll if it is clear that more information exists below the fold. And I’m not alone in observing this. A recent article over at cxpartners talks about the myth of the page fold, describing how user testing revealed that users don’t actually mind scrolling:

People tell us that they don’t mind scrolling and the behaviour we see in user testing backs that up. We see that people are more than comfortable scrolling long, long pages to find what they are looking for. A quick snoop around the web will show you successful brands that are not worrying about the fold either.

The Myth of the page fold – cxpartners.co.uk

This is a really good example of how user testing can be used to prove (or disprove) dominant assumptions about user behaviour.

And there’s a wider issue here – that of separating content from presentation. We shouldn’t be wasting our time worrying about the minutiae of how web pages look, especially given that the rise of mobile browsing makes this pretty hard to do anyway. When you add user preferences such as increased text size, this becomes even harder, if not impossible, to truly account for.

With that said, I really like Google Browser Size, and think that what it does do well is remind us that there are so many variations out there that we simply can’t account for them all. By all means use it to identify a few quick wins (for example, an important call to action should be at the top anyway), but don’t get too hung up on making your site fit every shape and size of browser.

Horizontal scroll

It’s probably worth pointing out that when we say that users don’t mind scrolling, we usually just mean vertical scrolling (up and down). Horizontal scrolling is a different matter entirely, and in my experience users hate to have to scroll horizontally. There are some nice examples of how you might get away with it if part of the design (see Design Meltdown’s gallery of horizontal scrollers), but unintentional horizontal scrolling can drive users away in no time at all. Avoid inflicting this upon your users by designing to the lowest common width of your intended users, or (far better) implement a fluid-width design.

1. Automatically playing audio on a webpage is usually an action which the user will not expect. It is therefore, at the very least, an irritation, especially if the user is in an environment where this is not appropriate.
2. At worst, though, the audio may conflict with other audio that the user is already listening to. That might be music, or perhaps another video. But far worse, it could be a blind user’s screen reader software, and the resulting conflict would make it very hard to browse that page to pause the video or mute the sound.

Auto-play = poor usability

When I asked about whether the auto-play was necessary, I was told that it was to ensure that people watched the videos, which contained important content. I would guess that people are far more likely to recoil at the auto-play and close the page than they are to happily watch the video, which then has an impact on them accessing the other text content on the page. Also, users may consider this a breach of website etiquette, making them likely to distrust the entire website as an ‘unknown quantity’.

In general, people don’t like anything unexpected being forced upon them. You could argue that in some instances you can give the user due warning (for example, via link text which states that the video will start automatically) and in certain contexts it is probably more acceptable (offering a link to a YouTube page, for example, means that anyone who follows that link has clearly decided to view that video). But neither of these apply in this instance – the main link text stated that it was to ‘information’ on the subject.

Auto-play = poor accessibility

As mentioned above, auto-play can conflict with screen reader software. For this reason it is specifically addressed in the internationally recognised Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0), which has the following to say:

If any audio on a Web page plays automatically for more than 3 seconds, either a mechanism is available to pause or stop the audio, or a mechanism is available to control audio volume independently from the overall system volume level. (Level A)

WCAG 2.0. Success Criteria 1.4.2 – Audio Control

The ability to turn off the audio is therefore considered to be a sufficient compromise when using auto-play, although the recommendation is that the control be made available at the top:

The intent of this technique is to allow a user to turn off sounds that start automatically when a page loads. The control to turn off the sounds should be located near the beginning of the page to allow the control to be easily and quickly discovered by users.

Technique G170: Providing a control near the beginning of the Web page that turns off sounds that play automatically

However, WCAG 2.0 does still give the following warning:

Playing audio automatically when landing on a page may affect a screen reader user’s ability to find the mechanism to stop it because they navigate by listening and automatically started sounds might interfere with that navigation. Therefore, we discourage the practice of automatically starting sounds (especially if they last more than 3 seconds), and encourage that the sound be started by an action initiated by the user after they reach the page, rather than requiring that the sound be stopped by an action of the user after they land on the page.

Understanding Success Criteria 1.4.2

It’s interesting to note that in the example I’m referring to, where my organisation has embedded a WMV in the page using Windows Media Player, I found myself unable to tab into the player using FireFox. Even when you can tab into the player, you have 36 links to tab past before you get to it. This means that we fail this criteria as a result, as non-mouse users will not be able to stop the video easily, if at all.

Given that the content of the video was considered so important that we apparently needed to force it onto people using auto-play, we’re seriously letting down those users who won’t be able to access that content properly.

Client preference vs user preference

This is a great example of the preferences of the content provider conflicting with the needs and preferences of the content consumer. These sorts of conflicts come up many times when developing sites (perhaps the most common is the request to open external links in new windows). Almost always, the arguments benefit the client, rather than the user. And whilst you may force a few more people to view your video, or stay on your site, or view something the way you want them to – ultimately you are harming your relationship with that user and, more often than not, they’ll be gone before those end credits roll…

• WCAG guidelines are a good start, but don’t cover everything. User testing is vital to fill in the gaps.
• Many of our assumptions about how people use Assistive Technologies can be very wrong.
• It can be hard to locate disabled users for testing – Mark reports that whilst they have plenty of blind users willing to participate, users with other conditions can be less easy to track down. Users with conditions such as autism and Asperger’s syndrome, for example.
• Colleges and universities can provide good links to willing participants. Charities also, although they won’t give you contact details – they usually just put out notices in their publications, which can slow the process significantly.
• Many users do not use Assistive Technologies, per se, but still do things to make content more accessible to themselves. Some dyslexic users, for example, will cut and paste text into word processing software in order to modify the size, font etc.

[Edit] The presentation is now available on Slideshare.

Of the various questions that arose during the session, perhaps the most contentious was in relation to accessibility statements. What are they for and what should they include? One clear message is that they should not be too technical – most disabled users are unfamiliar with WCAG conformance or other technical terms. There is a conflict here, though, with WCAG 2.0′s suggestion of a technical statement of conformance in the form of a Conformance Claim. There’s also a clear difference between accessibility statements and the wider purpose of a Help section. I’ll be looking at this issue in greater depth soon, so stay tuned.

Another issue related to customisation of websites – specifically, the inclusion of widgets to resize text, change colour contrast etc. I’m personally against these in principle, as there is a significant lack of convention in how such functions are provided across different websites. Also, anyone needing larger text, for example, would be far better off learning how to increase the size themselves, using their browser. A final point, which Mark had observed himself during user testing, was that many users will not activate these functions even when they might benefit from them, simply because they do not want to bring attention to their condition in a public environment or at work.

Thanks again to Mark, Marzena and everyone else at User Vision for a very enjoyable event, not to mention the greatly appreciated breakfast and coffee, making the early start well worth it!

Future breakfast events

User Vision hope to put on more breakfast events in future, so head over to their Events section for more info (there’s even a handy RSS feed available).

With these kind of websites, you’d think that such functionality would be fairly standard across the board, with most sites taking a similar approach. But far from it. Here are some examples:

Search

One site (www.aflatintown.com) asks you to specify the exact number of bedrooms. Now, whilst I only need one bedroom, a second one would be nice and is probably affordable. But to look for both I’m forced to do two separate searches (a far better option, which many other sites offer, is the ability to specify ‘exact’ or ‘minimum’ when choosing number of bedrooms).

Another site (www.drm-residential.co.uk) has a field for Location, but no hint as to what you should put there (Street name? Area? Postcode?). I tried typing ‘central’ but that came back with nothing. Even worse, the message said “All our properties are currently let” which simply wasn’t the case – other search terms revealed dozens of properties.

Yet another (www.flatcompany.com) makes you choose between ‘properties for students’ or ‘properties for professionals’ before you get the results (which you can then filter only by ascending or descending price and number of bedrooms). Now I may be a professional, but I might still want to look at the flats which they have identified as being for students (or vice versa). Again, two separate searches are necessary.

One of the best examples (www.s1homes.com, which aggregates results) gave multiple, optional criteria. Here you could specify your exact price range, property type, minimum bedrooms, location, keywords, availability and furnishings. You could even filter entries by when they were added, as well as specifying the garden, central heating and/or garage. Finally, and brilliantly, you could see the results on a map by way of a Google Maps mash-up.

Good search makes all the difference

Contact

Surprisingly, the methods of contact varied a lot too. I would have expected all sites to give address, telephone and email address as a minimum, with an optional contact form maybe thrown in for convenience. This was not always so, however, with some sites only offering the contact form.

Contact forms can be quick and easy for the users, and are a great way of ensuring you receive relevant information, but with something like the fast-paced world of flat hunting many people are going to want to contact you immediately, rather than wait around hoping that the form worked.

Also, some sites had two methods of contacting the agency – either as a tenant or as a property owner. As a prospective tenant, I assume that I’m supposed to use the former, but it’s not completely obvious and that may put some people off.

Property details

Finally, the type of details being offered by the various sites also varied wildly. Some gave lots of detail, including all the essentials such as rent and tax band, but also listing all the appliances and local amenities. Great! Others, however, take a more minimalist approach and even use a number of acronyms to increase the mystique (GCH, FF etc). If you don’t know what these stand for (‘gas central heating’, ‘fully furnished’ etc) you’re missing out on important content.

Conclusion

These are just a handful of examples of how a lack of thought (or possibly lack of technical expertise) can result in a real-world lack of usability. None of the issues highlighted here are complete barriers to using the sites, but they will hinder the user, slowing down their efforts to access the content, and ultimately impact upon on the image of the website, and the company, as a whole.

The hunt for a new flat goes on…