A rather large effort

The website for the consumer markets wing of BT, the UK
telcomms
company, has launched a re-design of its site today:
 
www.bt.com
 
It took them (and the agencies contracted to design/build
the thing)
almost *five years* to do - yes, it really took that long.
 
I wonder if this is this a record?
 
 
 
 
Jonathan Baker-Bates
User Experience Architect

jonathan.baker-bateslbi.com  |  www.lbi.com <http://www.lbi.com/> 

Direct: +44 20 7348 1040
Mobile: +44 7909 537 528
Skype: gilgongo
Fax: +44 20 7348 1111

LBi  Beaumont House  Kensington Village  Avonmore Road  bond
 W14 8TS
UK

An LBi Group company
 

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When I was in the UK I did a brief stint in at BT and this
doesn't
surprise me at all 

Nor does it surprise me that after all that time there are
still
fairly major flaws (eg using the search to find a person
with a common
name in bond, which could return a very large number of
results,
gives no indication as to how many pages you are going to
have to
trawl through).

-Mel

On 17/04/07, Jonathan Baker-Bates
<Jonathan.Baker-Bateslbi.com> wrote:
> The website for the consumer markets wing of BT, the UK
telcomms
> company, has launched a re-design of its site today:
>
> www.bt.com
>
> It took them (and the agencies contracted to
design/build the thing)
> almost *five years* to do - yes, it really took that
long.
>
> I wonder if this is this a record?
>
>
>
>
> Jonathan Baker-Bates
> User Experience Architect
>
> jonathan.baker-bateslbi.com  |  www.lbi.com
<http://www.lbi.com/>
>
> Direct: +44 20 7348 1040
> Mobile: +44 7909 537 528
> Skype: gilgongo
> Fax: +44 20 7348 1111
>
> LBi  Beaumont House  Kensington Village  Avonmore Road 
bond  W14 8TS
> UK
>
> An LBi Group company
>
>
>
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> For more information please visit http://www.messagela
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>
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>
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On 17/04/07, Melanie Kendell <melanie.kendellgmail.com> wrote:
> When I was in the UK I did a brief stint in at BT and
this doesn't
> surprise me at all 
>
> Nor does it surprise me that after all that time there
are still
> fairly major flaws (eg using the search to find a
person with a common
> name in bond, which could return a very large number of
results,
> gives no indication as to how many pages you are going
to have to
> trawl through).

I think most contractors in bond worked on this at some
point,
including myself. The most ironic thing about it is that BT
was for a
while preaching 'business agility' - not really the same as
taking 5
years to do a site is it?

It also suffers from slight 'home page fixation' as well,
which doesnt
help much'.  The real stuff home users want to sit is sat
behind an
enegmatic link called 'Overview'  -  at term I've seen used
that
usualy means - "we should have taken people to the page
to start off
with but our we got our navigation structure wrong".

It's very easy to see these mistakes from outside I have to
admit. I
can imagine the wrangling with the client and presentation
of multiple
front pages over time only to get sign off on a kinda
compromise but
in terms of focus it has to be said that that first list
presented to
you when you hit 'home' is visual mush and has 'new
customers' next to
'BT Broadband talk' mixing modes and not given any clear
indication
why. The user really has to start thinking at this point to
work out
what they want when all they need is the next page. To let
this get
through there must have been some overly specific usability
testing
scripts.

Stewart Dean











-- 
Stewart Dean
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: sigia-l-bouncesasis.org 
> [mailto:sigia-l-bouncesasis.org] On Behalf Of Stew
Dean
> Sent: 17 April 2007 12:46
> Cc: sigia-lasis.org
> Subject: Re: [Sigia-l] A rather large effort
> 
> On 17/04/07, Melanie Kendell <melanie.kendellgmail.com> wrote:
> > When I was in the UK I did a brief stint in at BT
and this doesn't 
> > surprise me at all 
> >
> > Nor does it surprise me that after all that time
there are still 
> > fairly major flaws (eg using the search to find a
person 
> with a common 
> > name in bond, which could return a very large
number of results, 
> > gives no indication as to how many pages you are
going to have to 
> > trawl through).
> 
> I think most contractors in bond worked on this at some

> point, including myself. 

I was seven months on the broadband, lines and calling
features order
process screens. That was almost three years ago, so the
stuff you see
there now is only partially mine.

NDAs forbid me to elaborate, but if most people were told of
even half
of the machinations that were necessary to get signoff on
the home page
(and search as well, incidentally) - let alone the rest of
the site -
then their heads would likely explode. Suffice to say that
in that five
years there was very little idle time.

Jonathan


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On 17/04/07, Jonathan Baker-Bates
<Jonathan.Baker-Bateslbi.com> wrote:
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: sigia-l-bouncesasis.org
> > [mailto:sigia-l-bouncesasis.org] On Behalf Of Stew
Dean
> > Sent: 17 April 2007 12:46
> > Cc: sigia-lasis.org
> > Subject: Re: [Sigia-l] A rather large effort
> >
> > On 17/04/07, Melanie Kendell
<melanie.kendellgmail.com> wrote:
> > > When I was in the UK I did a brief stint in
at BT and this doesn't
> > > surprise me at all 
> > >
> > > Nor does it surprise me that after all that
time there are still
> > > fairly major flaws (eg using the search to
find a person
> > with a common
> > > name in bond, which could return a very large
number of results,
> > > gives no indication as to how many pages you
are going to have to
> > > trawl through).
> >
> > I think most contractors in bond worked on this at
some
> > point, including myself.
>
> I was seven months on the broadband, lines and calling
features order
> process screens. That was almost three years ago, so
the stuff you see
> there now is only partially mine.
>
> NDAs forbid me to elaborate, but if most people were
told of even half
> of the machinations that were necessary to get signoff
on the home page
> (and search as well, incidentally) - let alone the rest
of the site -
> then their heads would likely explode. Suffice to say
that in that five
> years there was very little idle time.
>
> Jonathan

I whole heartedly believe it. I've been very lucky with the
clients
I've worked with - and the few times there have been
political issues
I've had enough of a buffer for me just to get on with box
drawing.

My take on this is there's usualy two types of work I have
to do, one
is the actual architeture of the site (even the largest
websites can,
in theory, be done in three months if all you are doing is
getting the
site working, including user research) and the other part of
it is
stake holder communication and ensuring buy in. There's also
the
arbitary changes from the client despite your best
intentions and
research findings.

 I have to thank Steve Krug at this point of helping reduce
the amount
of arbitary changes in the past as his book 'don't make me
think' is
great for reasuring clients and getting them to be user
advocates - I
used to bulk order them from Amazon.

Meanwhile I empathise with those that did the BT site, I'm
sure there
where many good ideas that crashed and burnt due to the
complexity of
explaining it to the client and convincing them when their
'common
sense' was telling them otherwise.

Cheers

-- 
Stewart Dean
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April 10-14, 2008, Miami, Florida

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