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FTSE-100's Web sites are still 'wallowing in mediocrity'
05 Jan 2003 The findings of the second annual Web "Oscars", which rank the UK's top 100 Companies by the quality of the Home Pages of their corporate Web sites, shows some startling results. The following article is an overview of the overall findings of this year's report. Purchasers of the report will have access to the reviews of each of the 100 Web sites assessed. These include identification of key usability issues affecting each site, with relation to its content elements, design, navigation and performance. Also included are; Full 1-100 rankings, Sector comparison rankings and Year-on-year comparison along with incisive comment on the findings and general state of the UK's Top 100 Companies Corporate Web sites.
These are the findings of the second annual Web "Oscars", which rank the UK's top 100 Companies by the quality of the Home Pages of their corporate Web sites. The research, carried out for Interactive Bureau, one of the UK's leading Web strategy and design companies, shows that, despite the improvement, Britain's top companies are still "wallowing in mediocrity" when it comes to their Web sites. An alarming number of them still treat their key audiences - investors and the media - appallingly, making it difficult to get the information they need. Nearly half still do not identify a section for the media on their Home Pages. A third still do not give their share price, or bury it away - and ten percent either have no investor area, or bury it away as well. Twenty-eight companies now rate in the "good" or "very good" categories for their Home Pages - against only nine last year. But the other 72, according to the report "vary from needing some substantial attention in one area or another, to needing a lot of urgent attention, to being irredeemably bad and in a state where they should be thrown away. "After last year's wake-up call, it is frankly astonishing to find that more than half of the sites remain exactly the same as they were, with the same dismal parade of glaring errors and omissions. And that eight of the sites, which have been redesigned, have somehow contrived to be worse now than they were before." Notable among these are Schroder, which was 26th last year with 49%, and managed to score lower in each of the four categories with its new site - scoring just 26% and coming 98th. Similarly, Severn Trent scored 47.25% last year and was 37th, but only managed 30.75% this year with their new site - and came 97th. Others who scored worse, despite re-designs, were Friends Provident (65th - 88th), Granada (51st - 72nd), HSBC (43rd - 72nd), Reuters (20th - 54th) and Standard Chartered Bank (5th - 19th). However, five of last year's worst performers have re-designed their sites and are now in the Top 10. They are BG-Group (63rd - 10th), Associated British Foods (100th - 9th), Scottish & Newcastle (94th - 8th), Pearson (73rd - 4th) and National Grid (54th - 1st) "This just shows what good design can achieve," says Rodney Tyler, Managing Director of Interactive Bureau, who commission the annual survey. "And by comparison, it shows how people like Schroders and Severn Trent have missed the boat completely. We wonder how much money they have wasted in the last year, only to achieve the seemingly impossible of making matters worse. "It also shows up those who have hardly bothered to do anything about their sites in the last year. We find it frankly amazing that Next (95th - 100th), Man Group(78th - 96th), BskyB (91st - 95th), Morrisons (99th - 94th) and Rentokil (86th - 92nd) all seem perfectly content to stay with their appalling sites, at heaven knows what cost to their businesses. "Do the CEO's of these companies not care? Do they not realise that the Home Page of their Web site is how the world sees them? It is how investors and potential investors see them. It is how the media sees them. It is how their brightest potential employees see them. It is how potential customers and clients see them. "It is well established now that a massive percentage of all the above groups form their first, and often lasting, impressions about a company on seeing its Home Page for the first time. You don't get a second chance." Interactive Bureau commissioned the report from Porter Research, the leading Web usability experts, who ranked the corporate Home Pages according to four main criteria - based on the conventions maintained by the leading usability agencies. These were eleven standard elements - "must haves" like News and Contact Us, which you would expect to find on the Home Pages of corporate sites - overall design, navigation and technical performance - speed of loading and cross browser compatibility. Adrian Porter of Porter Research said: "This is very much a 'Yes... but' report this year. Yes, standards have gone up. Yes, a third of the FTSE-100 companies have redesigned their sites, which shows they are beginning to take the medium seriously.Yes, some of those redesigns, are now among the best. But the majority are still wallowing in mediocrity. Last year's report was seen by many industry commentators as an appropriate wake-up call to our top companies that they needed to address the inadequacies of their Internet presence. It appears that for many of our top companies the call fell on deaf ears. "For the majority of our top companies - even for an alarming number of those who have redesigned their sites - the lessons have still not been learned. It is still staggering to see how fastidiously they protect their image in every way possible - from the cut of the CEO's suit, to the car he drives, to the hundreds of thousands they spend on their corporate literature, to the millions they spend on their corporate headquarters "Yet, when it comes to the Web, the way the world sees them, they seem happy to squander all that hard-earned benefit on an ill-thought out, ill-designed and ill-executed mess." He added: "Nevertheless the value of redesign does show through - thirteen of the top twenty sites this year are redesigns from last year. Only five companies, who have not redesigned, have managed to hold their places in the top twenty - and all but one of them have slipped in the rankings." Prominent among these are: Six Continents (1st - 2nd), Kingfisher (2nd - 3rd), and Sainsburys, which stayed at fourth. Among those who fail to explain what they do on their Home Pages are: Next, Scottish & Southern Electricity, BAA, Bradford & Bingley and Canary Wharf. Is there some form of corporate arrogance about these companies, which says: "Everyone knows what we do, so why bother explaining it,?" the report asks. BskyB, Canary Wharf, Morrisons, Next and United Utilities were among those who fail to provide a link to an Investors area from their Home Pages. Similarly, Barclays, British Airways, Tesco and HSBC were among the 46% who failed to provide a direct link to any form of media centre from their Home Pages. The report says that it finds it "astounding" that 31% of the FTSE-100 still do not offer visitors even a link to share price information from their Home Pages. Among offenders in this category are: Royal Bank of Scotland, WPP, Lloyds TSB and Diageo. Overall the average score went up from 39% last year to 52% this year. The top sector is Telecommunications - and the bottom ones is Speciality & Other Finance. The top five Home Pages are:
The bottom five are:
The second annual "Review of the UK's Top 100 Companies Corporate Web Sites" - is published on Monday January 6, 2003 by Interactive Bureau, London. Price £400 +VAT. Copies can be obtained from:Interactive Bureau, 9 White Lion Street, London N1 9PD. Tel: 020 7278 4352. Or by downloading the order form to post or fax to us. Or order online For further information contact: Mark Everest or Adrian Porter at 020 7278 4352. Or Email to enquiries@iablondon.com |
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