Have you ever wondered why every pornsite banner knows where you live, but no airline website is smart enough to do that?
I actually implemented automatic IP geolocation on RateMyStudentRental.com, but it confused a lot of people because they weren't expecting it.
You have people trying to search for rental housing near their school while they're back home over break, and people searching for something across town by campus while they're at work, etc. Even the people who were trying to search for something nearby still expected to have to enter in the address, so they were completely thrown off, which is counter to the whole "Don't make me think" mantra. And don't even get me started on the people searching behind a corporate firewall, where the corporate headquarters (and IT dept) were halfway across the US.
In the end, I had to remove the automatic IP geolocation. Perhaps this is specific to my niche. Perhaps this feature is still ahead of the time (as the porn industry often is). Either way, that's what happens when you must hold your website changes accountable to actual metrics and results.
Perhaps the problem is more that you didn't present them with an option to choose the auto-generated option. I think a graceful method would be to allow them to enter a zip code, but have a radio that has the auto-generated option as a choice. So they are presented with "Enter your location" which they proceed to click the radio box. Presumably you could then save the location they manually entered in via a cookie and present that as an option as well.
Actually, I did have that option. The difference is that I had the auto location by default with an option to enter it manually. Perhaps if I had tried it the other way around, it would have worked better. But neither would have really had any effect on the bottom line, so I didn't have the luxury of spending more time to test it.
I've implemented the geolocation bit a few times. What I like to do is have the detected location in the box, but a little faded out, if they click in the box, the entire text is selected (so they can override it just by clicking), and once they've changed and submitted their location it gets cookied so it becomes the default when they come back.
I'm sure it still confuses some people, but the more common it becomes, the more everyone gets used to it.
The benefit differs across markets and audience though, so I agree it shouldn't be a rule of thumb for good design. At least not yet.
That's exactly what I did. I got a bunch of emails informing me of "a bug that had something already typed into the location box," whether that default was accurate or not. Our users aren't necessarily the most tech-savvy.
You have to please everyone. From the morons to the tech savvy. It's a thankless job, because unless you get it exactly right, someone is gonna be pissed off.
By the time you've read the button, moved the mouse over to it, clicked it, waited for the result to be returned, and verified the accuracy of the result, you could have just typed it yourself.
You don't have to set it up so they have to wait for the result to be returned. Remember, the point of this "guess my location" button has nothing to do with a technical limitation; it's just a way of giving the user a sense of ease. You could easily automatically figure out their location when they come to the site, but just keep it hidden until they click the button.
Steve, I suspect your users are very similar to my users. Sometimes they're not quite ready to accept something, but if you pitch it to them the right way, they'll warm up to it really quick.
For example, you and I know that you can geolocate my ISP to Nagoya with an API call that won't take a milisecond. How about, instead, doing some JQuery magic:
"Asking Google for your location..." (2 seconds)
"Searching for apartments around you..." (2 seconds)
For a second, I thought "wow! another HN reader in Nagoya!" then I realized it was you. ;)
I think one of the problems JangoSteve had with his implementation is that people really don't like to see forms already filled in on their website (we've gotten a lot of complaints about it at our work as well)
I really like the solution that was shown in the related article. All of his Geolocations have a regular text section that says something along the lines of:
"Ship something from _San Jose, CA_. (Not in San Jose? Click Here)"
Which would then (I assume) replace text with a fill-in form using JS.
That would keep the "Why is there information in my form!" support mails down, while at the same time providing the GEOfunctionality and an easy way to correct mistaken information (Porn sites always think I'm in Kasugai, which is about 50km from where I live grin)
And be sure to save their inputted area in a cookie, so they don't have to re-correct your geocache every time they see your site!
> And don't even get me started on the people searching behind a corporate firewall, where the corporate headquarters (and IT dept) were halfway across the US.
Or, indeed, in a different country with a different native language. I worked for one of those for a while, in a job that involved a fair bit of official web browsing (on-line reference materials for various things). Within days of the shift to routing everything through corporate IT, I wanted to kill whoever invented IP geolocation. It's a great idea that should almost never be used in practice.
No matter how many times I change the language on the PayPal page, I get Italian the next time. Just because Tiscali assigned me an IP from "Italian" pool... in UK. IP geolocation can be annoying.
Strangely - porn banners still show correct city in UK, not Italy... maybe PayPal should buy the geo DB from them instead?
So how would you do it? I notice you didn't write "IP geolocation", just "geolocation", so perhaps you would use something other than the IP information?
It is clear that no matter how smart you are as a developer, IP-only geolocation can't work reliably, simply because of the proxy issue.
It's more a UI/UX issue. You want to make it clear that the guessed location is only a suggestion so people don't get confused if it's wrong. You also want to make it just as easy to change it (if it's wrong) as if you weren't providing the location suggestion at all. Difficult? Maybe. But not impossible.
And really, it's just balance -- maybe some people will still get confused. But maybe the benefit gained by the people who get their location guessed correctly outweighs the detriment of those who get a bad guess and get confused.
but it confused a lot of people because they weren't expecting it.
counter to the whole "Don't make me think" mantra
The problem is that confusing people forces them to think so you're actually making it harder for them to do what they need done. Honestly I have never seen a site where geolocation was useful. I guess if I were in a location where I didn't know the zip code, or street address, or street name it would be useful if I were looking for, e.g., a good restaurant. But in that situation, I wouldn't be using the internet, I'd just ask someone.
You are exactly right, and I image that this is true for most sites. For example, I do not want a car rental site to geolocate me! I seldom search for car rentals where I live, but often search for rentals at various destinations.
These redesigns are good, I have to say. I'm glad you focused on making them more functional instead of prettier (that can't be said about most other unsolicited redesigns).
But after all the discussion about Dustin's AA or Andrew's Zappos redesigns, I don't know how the fact still didn't catch up, that creating the first mockup isn't that big of a deal, and the real work can't be done not taking into account any requirements or business goals :)
And unfortunately from a user's standpoint, a redesign is one of the worst things that could happen to a site. Because however cramped and difficult a site might be, there are people who use them daily, and changing the structure completely overnight would abandon the most loyal users. That's why it's easy for startups to come up with nice sites in 2010, they haven't had a website since 1995 so they don't have the baggage of previous users.
So as much as a redesign, I'd appreciate not a complete overhaul but sort of a compromise, that would improve usability without forcing old users to relearn everything. A good alternative is having the old and new site co-exist for a while, to get feedback on the new site as well, but not all companies unfortunately have resources for that.
No, the most loyal users won't abandon it. They will scream and curse and complain and beg you to make it the way it was for about four weeks. After that time, everyone will have forgotten what the old version looked like and stop complaining.
This hasn't been the case for the recent thesixtyone redesign. Hundreds of dedicated users (users who actually spent money) and artists have left and are more than likely never going back.
I'm not sure if this will pan out to be true and anyways they did the opposite of what this guy is doing. They took a usable site and made it unusable :)
Unless the redesign is a major step backwards, where you'll lose a lot of users with the redesign.
The website for the card game Magic:the Gathering is an example of that, they absolutely wrecked their webpage and forums, and I know that they lost a lot of forum users and webpage readers because of that (but maybe it's ok for them if they weren't the core audience).
I don't know if they did gain among the younger audience, so maybe the redesign was a success... I'll never know, as I'm not an insider.
I remember my outrage and all of the groups that formed when Facebook created the concept of the "News feed." Remember when to see the differences in people's profiles you had to individually check them?
> And unfortunately from a user's standpoint, a redesign is one of the worst things that could happen to a site. Because however cramped and difficult a site might be, there are people who use them daily, and changing the structure completely overnight would abandon the most loyal users. That's why it's easy for startups to come up with nice sites in 2010, they haven't had a website since 1995 so they don't have the baggage of previous users.
So we should never redesign and make a website more functional because old users might not use it?
I know you're asking that question to point out what you consider to be obvious, but actually I would say the answer to the question is more "yes" than "no".
A redesign in this case may help get new users, but it's much easier (and more cost-effective) to retain existing customers than to gain new customers. So, if your change upsets existing users on any meaningful scale, then it's probably not a good idea.
I'm not saying to never redesign. I'm saying that you should redesign iteratively and in small steps, so that both existing and new users benefit. You never want to attempt gaining new users at the expense of existing users.
It's a great idea in theory, the problem is that corporate designs go through ten different committees each wanting something different, so you end up with an unusable mess.
Exactly, the first design mockup is the easiest part of the process.
From my experience, getting feedback from a small team in 20 person startup can drastically change the site from the designers original vision.
At the bigs companies there are many different stakeholders who need to be appeased. Some of the changes may seem illogical to the average consumer, but they might be well justified by management. For example trying to keep a few big corporate clients happy by including a large cheesy marketing message on the homepage.
Edit: But I admit, DHL is in desperate need for a redesign. Their website is awful.
I absolutely agree that big companies would dramatically slow down the development process. And that's why I put a disclaimer on each page saying it takes consulting and understanding of the problem domain to produce a final result. Mockup is definitely just a first step, but I figured it's the step that attracts an attention.
And it is interesting how different, huge, departments own various pieces of the web page--menu bar, right margin, left links, and so on. And fight for changes of any sort to their piece of real estate.
Would it be cool if the AA site searched all airlines (like Kayak does)? Oh, I would use that thing.
That's like saying "Wouldn't it be cool if Amazon displayed the prices of all of its competitors (like PriceGrabber does)?" It's a conflict of interest. Either the information is honest and helps competitors or it is dishonest and of no benefit to consumers.
I'd be much more curious to see "100 Business Redesigns" where you'd outline how you'd revolutionize the mission, organizational culture, operations, marketing, etc of a large public company.
You could title it "If I ran this place..."
Here, I'll start with NCR, just like the OP:
* Simplify pricing: For a given market, date, and vehicle class, here's the cost of the rental, regardless of what referral source you came through. Inventory is inventory.
* Publish all this data publicly, not just to those who pay for SABRE contracts
* Include a gas card (ala zipcar). (Pre-negotiate rates with the major gas station operators)
* Don't overbook. Have real-time inventory available at all times at all points of sale. (again see zipcar)
* Don't bombard me with cross-sells from your "partners". The only revenue you ever got from that is from people who forget to untick the box that charges them the extra $50. It just gets in the way of me completing the transaction with you.
Organizational Theory question: How do you avoid, once becoming a larger enterprise, this kind of "mission creep" where too many groups hold sway over the public face and mission of a company?
The most common model I've seen thus far is the "single-minded-guy-at-the-top" model: Apple, Zappos (any other good examples come to mind?). A relentless voice to keep reminding people "what is our core business?" and ruthlessly cull everything that isn't core, even if it contributes revenue.
I don't usually hear about JetBlue's CEO holding that kind of sway-- they seem to have that culture organically. If I recall, Southwest used to have that kind of CEO, but he's retired, so the question remains of how to maintain that kind of focus.
The problem with managing any large organisation is achieving some degree of harmony between what the people with the vision and overall responsibility want and what the people working five levels below them are actually doing. Once you reach the point where no-one has non-trivial insight into everything that is going on, this becomes very difficult, no matter how carefully you plan your corporate communications and how sincere the management structure.
A common, and reasonable-sounding, approach to fixing problem areas is to create some sort of "focus group" or "core team" (or bring in an external consultancy) who can take the time to do what the rest of the staff can't do without disrupting their regular jobs: go talk to people at all levels through the organisation, gather the key points about what is happening and what the staff feel about it, summarise what is actually happening for management, and possibly advise on how to improve the situation based on what has worked elsewhere.
The difficulty with this approach is that in most organisations, there will be a grass-roots resistance/resentment of any changes that such a working group proposes, because people don't like to be told how to do their jobs, even if they are doing them badly and don't necessarily realise it. You have to have honest, full-on backing right down the management structure to pull this off, and you need to get the "good" people on your side first so that when others challenge the changes the people they know personally and respect will shape their views. This is possible, but IME only if senior management are willing to deal brutally with any middle management interference runners, which they seldom are. (Edit: Also, anyone seconded to the working group needs to have both an open mind themselves and the respect of the management team in whatever part of the organisation they represent. Otherwise, they will just disrupt the group, or they'll talk a lot and come up with good ideas to which no-one will then listen.)
Those who get to run big businesses and have snazzy MBAs and such are supposed to understand these issues and get them right, but it's sad how often they don't.
I really like the changes that you made and immediately wanted to see what you would do with my website's design.
Though I stumbled when the "Have a tip which site should I redesign next?" link took me to Twitter. I missed the "Hire Me" link in the top right for some reason. (big screen made it way out in right field.)
Regardless, I bet you'll bring more business this way; maybe even from one of your "targets". It's a really nice guerrilla marketing strategy.
You should try to abstract your rules for these redesigns and make them in to a best practices ruleset.
I like all three. Can I add you to my list of 'available'
webdesigners ?
The biggest problem with these big corporate websites I think is that they have no real incentive to think about the usability and general aesthetics of their websites.
After all, we're just lousy customers, if the package was sent through DHL we'll have to use their website.
If you want to fly KLM/North-West then you'll have to use their website, etc.
If they were just competing on the web they'd be paying much more attention to these details.
Another big problem is that usually there are 10 or 15 departments involved in getting a big corporate website built, especially if they interface to 'legacy' systems.
Looking at this through the lens of a startup-minded person is not 100% accurate. It is also a very good reason why running a start-up is much more fun than working for one of these big corporations.
Before you would even get internal permission to do these mock-ups you'd be 6 months down the line, and during those 6 months the requirements would change all the time.
The real problem is that big companies are structured into hierarchies, and getting a big change (like a site redesign) often requires simultaneously developing support through several branches of the company tree. At each level, management feels an obligation to make their opinions felt, and the result is endless compromise. For some things, this works well, but it is a very risk-averse process, so it is hard to make dramatic improvements. So big companies buy little companies (and often ruin them, but that's another discussion).
The problem isn't necessarily that big companies have incapable web designers, but rather that the influence of even the most capable is quite limited. It seems to be a fundamental problem with large organizations.
I once worked for a large company I shall not name, where ultimately the decision on which colour to make the menu on the website ended up being taken by the CEO.
One thing I forgot to mention in the post: I chose National Car Rental website for a redesign, because I've been watching The Daily Show online every day with NCR ads. I was so fed up with it, that I felt I had to do something about it to release the pain.
The Where and When step it's absolutely awesome. I really like it, the very essential of the task.
I know it's just a sketch you did for fun, read the disclaimer in the page, but: The Main navigation menu, the tips (ads ?) in the left, and the successive steps however can be optimized. Eg: Enter personal information (Mr. Stewart ... It's not needed when the user (mr Stewart) is logged in.
Seeing redesigns is an interesting exercise. But I don't see it being much more than that.
The author asked why companies have not done this. Believe me, 9 times out of 10, if it would increase their income, they would have.
The fact that they have not done so means that there are either business reasons to leave it as-is, or simply other projects that will have a greater impact on the business, and therefore a redesign is of low priority.
I've said this before -- just becase we care about web startups, that does not make every company into a web startup. Having a good web design does not always have a material impact on the bottom line of a business.
That's a valid point for businesses in general. However, for customer facing businesses like DHL or AA that depend on their websites for a large part of their customer interaction, caring a lot about your website would seem to be pretty important.
I haven't worked in that situation before, but what is likely happening is that the managers in these large orgs are 50+, didn't grow up with the internet, and don't fully appreciate things like the importance of awesome design in your front page.
> 9 times out of 10, if it would increase their income, they would have
If you've ever worked on a design project inside a big company, you'd know that's simply untrue.
Big companies are not actually streamlined profit machines, they're streamlined ego-perpetuating machines. Which is why you have the 10-committee problem, the 50-stakeholder problem, and "Marketing" owns the sidebar and news area of the site, while Copywriting owns only the front page and About Our Company pages, and Operations and/or the Boss' Secretary owns everything else...
It's inefficient as hell to have 10+ people in a design meeting, for example. Wastes profits by the boatload. Committees do not create profits, they just increase the wastefulness of most meetings.
And so on, so forth -- the good news is, as a consultant, they were wasting my time at $300+ an hour.[1] As long as I was content to sit there and do nothing but count my money in my head, it was a great gig.
I remember one client that paid us quite a lot of money for research and initial redesigns, but in the end, the CEO got talked out of approving our $60k budget. Because Marketing was afraid it would cut into their budget -- which was $300k/mo.
Keep in mind: This particularly company's whole business was delivering a web video experience.
12 mos later, they went from several hundred employees to about 60. Last I heard (months after that), they're down to 20.
What a surprise.
This problem doesn't exist only at startups, though. I've worked with a lot of big name companies you'd recognize, and almost everywhere it's the same.
[1] The great thing about being a consultant to big biz is that your rates don't matter. Occasionally a client will initially balk when you throw out $300, $400, whatever per hour -- but it's usually them 'playing poker' with what they are willing to pay.
The fact of the matter is, when they overstuff meetings (which they all habitually do), they are wasting $1000s per hour of their own employee time.
Interesting concept if you can sustain it. I would pay special attention to detail though. The DHL redesign has a pretty glaring typo in it. You don't want to appear lazy if you're trying to generate work from the mockups.
I love the hubris. "there are plenty of reasons, from lack of understanding of the profits that a good website eventually brings". Yes, the multi-billion dollar corporation has less of an idea what a more usable website would do to their bottom line, than some random guy with a posterous account.
Any large team ends up as an average of it's members. So all you have to do is be above that average. There is no large company in the world that meets with a web designer and says "Do what you think is right, you're the expert."
Its similar with internal IT. Invariably they have to answer to people that have no tech background/knowledge, and those same people will not allow the IT dept to make decisions independently. Large organizations guarantee suboptimal results in this manner.
You see the hubris is even more prevalent in the big corporations.
If this gains a little traction, you might find your inbox full of requests for your services. (Edit: I missed the dark gray bar at the top of the page and now see that you're aiming for that. Good luck!)
I actually implemented automatic IP geolocation on RateMyStudentRental.com, but it confused a lot of people because they weren't expecting it.
You have people trying to search for rental housing near their school while they're back home over break, and people searching for something across town by campus while they're at work, etc. Even the people who were trying to search for something nearby still expected to have to enter in the address, so they were completely thrown off, which is counter to the whole "Don't make me think" mantra. And don't even get me started on the people searching behind a corporate firewall, where the corporate headquarters (and IT dept) were halfway across the US.
In the end, I had to remove the automatic IP geolocation. Perhaps this is specific to my niche. Perhaps this feature is still ahead of the time (as the porn industry often is). Either way, that's what happens when you must hold your website changes accountable to actual metrics and results.