9xb - Creating Online Success

WHAT YOU CAN LEARN ABOUT WEB DESIGN FROM DUBLIN AIRPORT SECURITY

On my recent trip to Google in Dublin, I encountered a pile-up of people struggling through the security checks that our friend Mr Bin Laden has indirectly imposed on us all. There were women in various stages of undress as security made them remove their shoes, hat pins, belts and other potentially lethal items of clothing. Whilst normally a big fan of things like that, that day I was more interested in getting through security so I could find unobtrusive but interesting things to charge to company expenses.

Meanwhile, as they hopped around trying to take off their boots under the eagle eyes of a man in a flourescent jacket, their handbags and phones etc were left in the little trays that roll through the x-ray machine. That in turn meant that my phone, wallet and jacket were backed up somewhere the other side of the x-ray machine and I found myself stood in a great untidy knot of humanity all waiting for people to get dressed so we could get our belongings and proceed to Claire’s Accessories.

It was pretty horrible really.

How did it come to this?

Especially in these days where ergonomics and design are such high priorities for any architect worth their salt. It’s a question that takes us back a good few years – and one that has interesting implications for website design when you stop to think about it.

Dublin airport has a very long, thin departure lounge. In fact, it’s basically a shopping mall, punctuated every hundred yards or so by seating areas where you can rest between trips to Starbucks or boarding your plane. Up until September 10th 2001, this made perfect sense. People were whisked through a cursory security check and then could spend a profitable couple of hours buying hair grips, socks, John Grisham novels and overpriced coffee before boarding their flight.

Then came September 11th, people like Richard Reid, and the sudden desperate need to ensure that people weren’t trying to bring semtex onto flights stuffed inside their boots. Alas. Because the building is shallow, it doesn’t allow for any kind of orderly queue once people have passed through the x-ray and all the ‘show me your boarding card’ hoop-la. Hence the ungainly mess of people and security guards all stood in an increasingly antsy state on the other side.

Just past the gates there is a thoroughfare of people pacing up and down looking for a toilet (hint: there is one, located many many yards from wherever you are stood at any given time) or carrying styrofoam cups to their spouses. This means that there is literally nowhere else for the men in flourescent jackets and rubber gloves to carry out their searches, and everyone passing through security is clogged together in the gap between the x-ray machines.

This then is a textbook example of a designed-for-purpose building that now performs catastrophically due to a sudden change in purpose.

Enough about the airport already, Paul! What about websites?

It might seem odd, but you’ve probably experienced something similar during a visit to a website recently. Well designed sites are only ‘well designed’ as long as the clarity of their original purpose is retained.

OK. It’s true that no-one’s going to launch a terrorist attack on your website and make you do everything differently overnight, but for most people change happens in response to all kinds of minor instances. The boss’s husband can’t find a particular option when he’s using the site, and so the web designers are told to make it more prominent (tip: use an animated union jack background under the words ‘click here’ in red).

Then a distraught customer phones up to tell you that your website has quite literally swallowed her credit card. And so the designers have to come up with a pop-up window that says ‘warning: this site may be about to swallow your credit card: proceed? YES NO”.

Before you know it, and with no-one noticing, you’ve ended up with Dublin Airport security. It’s become a site which no longer matches the purpose for which it was designed. All those complexities you’ve introduced don’t lead to women hopping around barefoot, but they do lead to bewildered customers leaving the site in confusement.

Luckily for Dublin airport, their only competition for direct flights to Leeds are personal Gyrocopters and I’ve barely got room on the drive for a Toyota. Unluckily for you, your website has potentially millions of competitors. All else being equal, the site with the smoothest, easiest, friendly operation is going to win hands-down.

Keeping on top of your design

As an exercise, if ever you’re thinking of adding extra functionality to your website, do an audit of everything that’s there already and see if you can lose an equivalent piece of functionality to keep your web design as simple as it can be.

Another tip is to remember that not every single piece of website user feedback is useful. Sometimes you have to take an aggregate view. Just because one customer would like the ability to choose several new delivery options doesn’t mean you’ve got to make life difficult for everyone else by accomodating her request.

On the other hand, if you get 14 emails a day complaining that people can't see your prices then there's a case for taking immediate action and getting on the blower to your website designer post haste.

Today’s Moral?

As your website grows and changes scope you'll find that in some regards it isn't fit for purpose any more. The original design that worked when you were selling 8 products might not work so well when you've got 8000. If this happens (and it will) consider every change with extreme care. Can you do things simpler? Can you lose some other unused feature? Does the site need a complete redesign? Maybe the best tip of all: - speak to your web designer.
 

Notes and Queries...

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