Web Design Best Practices From UK Interactive Agencies

Forrester applied its Web Site User Experience Review methodology to 18 sites provided by nine interactive agencies in the UK. While agencies struggled with usability, a number of best practices emerged from our evaluations. The best practices included functionality that added value to the users' experiences on the Nike Football+, Barclaycard, and Sky TV Web sites; supportive contextual help on the BBC Radio 5 live site; a search interface that allowed users to sort results on the Health Protection Agency site; language written for target users on the Smokefree United site; recognizable, consistent, and interactive elements throughout the Marks and Spencer site; clear location cues on the Fancy Dress Outfitters site; and good feedback on the Orange Boutique site. Firms that want to offer a great customer experience through their Web sites should take a hands-on approach with their agencies to create useful and usable sites. Customer experience professionals should use a suite of tools to evaluate the site experience on an ongoing basis, use personas to ensure that agencies and internal stakeholders stay focused on the needs of the target users, and incent agencies to deliver useful, usable sites.