(again to the broader circulation list)
Doug - back off. You are taking this personally. You are too close to this website and cannot see the wood for the trees. You may wish to "print it out, screw it up in a ball and throw it in the wastepaper bin", as you said before, but then that is your choice and your loss.
I will re-iterate that I do not care what the individual errors are, nor how quickly they might be fixed. The problems I see are much more significant - governance and strategy, in short. I would not care if we were discussing problems with the office photocopier, but this website is a costly and very public face of the BBKA.
I will not continue this petty tangential sniping match with you. The principles here are more important and need to be discussed in the round, openly, robustly, and for the benefit of the BBKA. No sacred cows.
All -
Some of you may not be aware that I have prior professional experience in this area, as a technology architect and infrastructure designer within large UK financial institutions.
Governance
My fundamental concern is that there is no apparent strategy or governance for this website. I judge this on the public results: the website. I have had no involvement with its inception or operation, but as an outsider looking in there are serious questions to ask. No personal comment or criticism is intended. I do not expect perfection.
There needs to be a clear strategy and a level of oversight which is divorced from day-to-day matters, and asks such questions as:
What is the purpose to the BBKA of the website?
How do users/visitors make use of the website?
Does it currently satisfy both sets of requirements?
Where can it be improved?
How/when is it tested?
How/when is it audited?
I do not know the exact dates, but I believe it has been at least two years since the website was developed. Therefore there are further questions:
What was the budget?
What have been the ongoing costs?
What were the requirements and/or success criteria?
Has it delivered against these requirements or criteria?
If we do not know the answers to these questions, we cannot say that it has not been a waste of time, effort, and money. I am aware that much personal effort and time will have been invested in this project, but I must ask some blunt questions with the interests of the BBKA in mind.
White knight
I am not convinced, on the evidence of the website as delivered and its ongoing 'fixing', that Whiteroom produced the product that was required. A clear example was the BBKA Forum, which did not provide basic functions for a discussion forum, and essentially killed off that avenue of engagement with members and/or public. It was done so badly that it appeared to be an intentional pulling of the plug. Another was the example of the early 'big menus', which frequently overflowed off the bottom or right of the screen, rendering navigation difficult and frustrating. Why were such poor solutions ever incorporated, and who has paid to rectify them?
To facilitate this governance and strategy, the BBKA need a 'white knight' who understands website technology and who can robustly assess and challenge both BBKA requirements and Whiteroom's proposals. I do not want this job. There may be a number of suitable candidates within the BBKA's membership, but they must have relevant professional experience, certainly not a well-intentioned amateur; otherwise, pay for the skills externally. Without this guidance the BBKA is necessarily an innocent abroad, reliant upon the guidance of a single supplier with a vested commercial interest.
Procedures & oversight
There needs to be disinterested review of the following, on an ongoing basis, comprising BBKA staff & trustees with the guidance of the 'white knight':
1) Testing. Where is the change testing and ad-hoc testing that should prevent, e.g. broken links from being spotted for a month? Why isn't every change tested immediately after it is made? What are the processes for testing and sign-off of more significant changes than day-to-day editing?
2) Audit. Where is the auditing of the website so that we know it is secure? Due diligence would suggest that we should check that our members' and customers' data is secure, rather than waiting for somebody to tell us if there is a problem; they may tell the media first. What is the reputational risk if there is a problem?
3) Usage data. What do we know about our 6,000 vists a week? If nothing, or next to nothing, then we are grading the essay by weighing the pages. There are umpteen questions about what visitors are looking for, how readily they find it, where they leave the site, whether visitors are converted into shoppers (and how/where). Unless we know something about our users, how do we know how many of those 6,000 leave satisfied or dissatisfied? Google Analytics is one route to this, and it is free.
4) Commercial. If the intention is for the website to make money, or at least cover its operating costs, what do we know about the commercial aspects? Which Google searches bring most users to the site? Which Google searches bring most shoppers or donors to the site? Where does the site appear in search engine rankings? Is paid-for advertising suitable for increasing shop visits/income? How would commercial success be measured and reviewed? Google Analytics is again one route to data to support this.
5) Usability. Use the usage data to map out a functional view of the website, place commonly accessed material at the forefront. Internet users have short attention spans. Give them what they want, quickly and easily, and they will have a positive experience and association with the BBKA. Review usage on an ongoing basis and ask "Can we organise content better?". Justify why a rearrangement based upon usage patterns wouldn't work. Justify why rarely-visited pages should not be deleted, combined, or otherwise parked out of the way. Are any unnecessary obstacles placed in the way of navigation?
6) Social media. We have the buttons on the website - Facebook and Twitter - but how do we measure what it achieves? How much time is invested in managing social media, how much is it a reputational benefit vs. reputational risk? Opening up two-way social media channels with the public requires an ongoing commitment.
7) Platform & design. Is the website constructed using off-the-shelf components, or bespoke? Bespoke ties you to one hosting/design partner, off-the-shelf gives you (the customer!) the option to change hosting/design partner without reinventing the wheel (at cost). What are the requisite client device (visitor) technologies & capabilities (e.g. input methods, screen sizes, etc.) and how can client device (visitor) incompatibilities be handled gracefully, or can the site be rendered in a reduced, compatible, form? What do we know about our visitor's client devices, and how is this changing over time?
Specific problems
Having said that I do not care what the specifics raised are, or how they are fixed, you need to understand why they caused me such frustration, regardless of technical details:
1) Free downloading of Module past papers. See the principles of auditing (2) above. Furthermore, I am greatly worried that if I give details, then yet another sticking plaster will be applied, instead of any testing or auditing. The problem may well be a trivial one-off, but there may be others, potentially more significant. Even the most basic of site audits would have thrown my problem up, therefore I conclude that the website & shop has never been audited. I will maintain my position with a clear conscience: there is a problem with the website & shop, you need to look more carefully at it.
2) Broken News links. See the principles of testing (1) above.
3) iPhone. The site was failing because Javascript was turned off; this is always "turn off- and on-able" in all browsers for technical and security reasons; I cannot remember if/when/why I last turned it on or off, but failure should not have been catastrophic. The website navigation menu relies upon Javascript being on, so did not appear, rendering the site inaccessible. Instead of failing gracefully with a message, as so many websites do, of "Please turn on Javascript", I instead got half the graphics and a big white box in the middle of the screen. Was it me? Was it the website? Why should I have to fiddle opportunistically with settings, or phone/email the office to find out? Would most site visitors bother? This is a design failing. See platform/design (7) above.
Branding vs. Content
A website has many requirements, two of which are to project an organisation's image, and to service visitors/customers. Branding is important in this, but should not be overbearing. The original site delivery from Whiteroom was a chaos of branding and images that occupied the majority of screen space. Much of this has been removed or toned down - thankfully - in the recent refresh. Quite whether this was driven by an awareness of usability issues, or by a desire to be "tablet ready" is unclear. However, it showed an appetite for change where change could be constructively justified. This is the right attitude and needs to continue, within a framework of governance and strategy.
There are many areas where comprehensive branding is valuable, such as a homepage, information about the organisation and its campaigns, indeed any pages designed to encourage donations, memberships or other forms of support for, or identification with, the organisation. There are other areas where branding is intrusive and unnecessary, usually where the function of that area of the website is concerned with providing information.
Why, when I want to download a Module syllabus, do I have to click through three pages beyond the homepage, each with a two-inch high photo that I have to scroll past to find the next links or the content I am after? There is already a BBKA banner at the top; I know that I am still on the BBKA website and that (if I find what I want) it is the BBKA that has satisfied me. How does it help me to see a picture of beehives or textbooks when I am probably already familiar with both?
If you think this is a petty concern, consider the average laptop. With a typical screen height still of 768 pixels, this combined branding/photo/navigation bar occupies 430 of those pixels, almost half of which (200) are this unnecessary photo embellishment. You are dooming site users to scroll and scroll to find the information they are looking for, exacerbating any irritation at how many pages need to be clicked through. Use branding where it is appropriate, reduce or remove it where it is not.
Content Champions
At various points, I have found simple things difficult to find. Until recently, the only sure-fire way to find the BBKA Recommended Reading List was to look at the Basic Certificate page - it was absent within the Module or Examinations pages. Clearly a simple oversight and easily rectified, but it raises questions both about the complexity of the site, and of the ownership and understanding of the content being presented.
I propose that the website is too complex, and the content too diverse, for any one person to be expected to have complete understanding. Devolving editing of areas of the site content to interested committees or individuals, with certain freedom to present or re-organise as they see fit (within the governance and strategy frameworks) may prove to be a simple way of improving the presentation, relevance, and accuracy of content, and hence maintaining a positive user experience.
In summary
The website started poorly and has teetered along for two (?) years, apparently without clear strategy or governance, with a focus on reactive fixing. It is a significant and very visible public face of the organisation. I strongly suggest that the BBKA needs to take it in hand, apply governance to the project & product, and use independent technical expertise to advise and mediate on both BBKA requirements & supplier proposals/deliverables.
Regards,
Dan.
