The bane of the marketing dept
Some Marketing Managers Need a Usability 101
Marketing departments need to read Steve Krug's book. Recently I was trying to find some information online, and found it a very difficult and frustrating process. I made it a point to jot down what I learnt here so that I (and others who read this post) may steer clear of these practices.
1. Give clear descriptive names for products
I wanted a plain old telephone line. Instead, I got a menu saying things like "BizPowerWeb", "VoiceNet", etc. It's cool to give your products cool names. But if you plan to do that, at least put a slogan that described the product at the bottom.
Case in point: http://business.singtel.com/sme/default.asp
2. Give straightforward navigation
I was looking for a bank account, and the homepage said something like "Infinity Account", "Premier Account", "Commercial Account", and "Corporate Account". I had no idea what "Inifity" meant, leave alone "Premier". The last 2 got me wondering what the difference between "Corporate" and "Commercial" was.
Case in point: http://www.hsbc.com.sg/1/2/home
Marketing departments can whip up all these fancy names, but some times it really only exists in their minds. It doesn't mean a thing to the ordinary consumer. What we as web developers need to figure out is to find a way to communicate this to the marketing people.
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