I recently lost my social security card and went online to order a new one. I was not sure which public authority was responsible for issuing the card but fortunately Copenhagen (my municipality) had ensured that their ordering page came up near the top on Google – and it even turned out that I could order it by a combination of SMS and web!
So far so good: the problem arose when I was asked whether I wanted to order the blue European Union card or the yellow card for Denmark. My old card was a yellow one but I had picked up somewhere that the blue one had come out a while ago. What’s more: the blue one was free whereas the yellow one came at a price so I had an interest in making the right decision.
So which card did I need? The web page contained no links to additional information. By using the site search engine, I managed to find the page on social security cards but it still left me in doubt on questions such as: can I use the blue EU-card in Denmark? Can I use the yellow card abroad? Do I need both – blue when travelling and yellow at home?
I needed assistance and the web site didn’t help. Result? I called the municipality so their benefit from investing in self-service was wasted.
The kind of half-knowledge (i.e. hearsay about the blue card) that made me uncertain about the right choice and my conjectures on what the right procedure and understanding might be are not uncommon. Lately I have become increasingly frustrated with web sites that deliver great features but forget providing the information needed to use them.
To mention but a few other cases: Syddjurs Kommune (another Danish municipality) has been much praised for making their journals and archives searchable on their web site. However, their site contains two search fields labelled: “Searching for information?” and “Search EasyInsight?” (my translation of the archive search function). While they do explain that one function searches the website and the other the archives, it can be really difficult to know which information is found in which repository. I also regularly come across sites where companies sell several products that do similar things but fail to let you compare their features.
A piece of advice if your budget has been cut and you cannot do new projects: start focusing on assisted choices to realise benefits from your existing web investments. Measure before and after and communicate results. It is cheap, technically simple and it will strengthen the web’s position in your organisation.
As early as 2003 Jakob Nielsen cited No “What-If” Support as one of the top ten web design mistakes and in 2007 he mentioned Product Differentiation and Comparisons amongst his suggested 10 High-Profit Redesign Priorities. In 2009, this priority seems unchanged.
Have you found good ways to predict user doubts and work with assisted choices? I would love to learn more.