Take me away...

Website administrators use a number of different methods to determine the popularity of their website (e.g. search rankings) different from the Marketing team (lead conversion) or Support organization (call volume). But one of the most important measures in my mind is the usability and return visitor rates. One measure of popularity (and there are MANY) is the Webby Awards
which has the Webby Award and the Popular Voice winners. I'll take the top winners of each category and give my thoughts of the two.

To start off in the Tourism category, the Webby Award winner was the Tourism site of Montreal and the People Voice winner was Toursim for Australia. First, with Tourism Montreal, it was very confusing on first landing at this site.

I was presented a nice 2 minute video of the city sites, but there was no quick links to my interests - accommodations or tours. From a first impression, I was not invited to interact with the site. However, once I got past the video, there were many more options to find more about the city.










Perhaps this is why the Australia site got the People's Voice award. This site is very visually appealing on first landing. I was quickly drawn to the different types of "walk abouts" I could go on and was given quite a bit of information about each one without having to hunt for it. One of the best analogies of the Web that I like is to compare a Web story (each Web site should try to tell you a story of some sort) to a book. You could read the book from cover to cover, sequentially, but it is limited in the ability to go off and find the definition of a term or research a particular topic in more detail. The Web on the other hand is dynamic and a good website navigation should lead the user down a particular (and predetermined) path with little effort. You should be able to easily go off on a tangent and easily come back to where you left off and continue your journey.

The Australia site definitely has a nicer feel to it and made it easier for me to research my journey and come back for follow-up. Great site Australia!

Magazine. Website. TV. Blogs - Oh My!

One of my most favorite websites is Marthastewart.com This site is not only chock full of great articles on just about anything gardening or food related (especially for those holiday ideas), but it also includes spots from her TV show, magazine, a blog and viewer discussion areas. This is one site that I think best sums up the term - multi-channel.




Imagine a Tv show about a new recipe and then going online to discuss other side dishes or alternative low-calorie or vegetarian ways to prepare the same dish. Watch a video on how to make the meal and comment after on the guest's reactions. This is one website that really embraces the user opinion and provides a venue to share them.

Nice job Martha!

Visions of tag clouds danced in their heads

The purpose of this blog site is to document unique or innovative ways the Web has helped organizations to cut costs, make money or avoid getting stomped by the competition. I give all rights and trademarks their due legal credits/disclaimers and in no way am I speaking on behalf of these organizations or anyone other than myself. Cheers to these Web savvy sites!

With that said, I must share with you a really nice use of site navigation and maps on the City of Las Vegas website. How many times have you gone to a government or service web site and tried to get the answer to your question, only to have to eventually find the "about us" section and give them the old ring on the telephone. Argh! This is the worst! If you are going to spend the time to be visible on the web, why not take one more step and make it actually useful for those people you are targeting?



Elvis has left the building (and gone to... check out the map)

The City of Las Vegas redesigned their front page to refect the most common questions asked during a phone call: How can I *** or Where do I **** type of inquiries. I don't know which department is responsible for my car registration let alone how to navigate a poorly designed website to see if there is *any* potential that they embrace the concept of "self service" and actually provide the forms or information I need to avoid getting in my car and driving to their offices. I don't have time nor the patience to both search the site AND drive over there after a failed attempt.

City of Las Vegas also presents a listing of government buildings on Maps to help the tourists visualize where they would go or help a poor constituent who is trying to find where to pay their parking ticket. Either way, it is really a nice use of the technology to enhance the interactivity and value of the web site. Not to mention that Las Vegas has won awards for this intuitive navigation approach.

Cheers to City of Las Vegas !

www.lasvegasnevada.gov