Sunday 21 October 2007
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The ICAS Website - How it Could be Improved
Unless a website meets the needs of the intended users, it will not meet the needs of the organisation providing the website (Bevan, 2004). Therefore, the importance of providing a good website is paramount. This is particularly true in the case of the ICAS (Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland) website (www.icas.org.uk) as here the website is generally provided for the use of its members, students and potential students. As a result of this, ICAS could do a number of things to improve its’ website.
At first glimpse of the home page there is a lot to take in. However, one specific problem is evident. The majority of the website that is shown on the average screen, the top half of the website, is taken up by two prominent adverts – one for the CA magazine and one detailing the ‘mission’ for ICAS. Although these adverts may be relevant, you can not pick up any other important information from the homepage. Therefore, ICAS may want to reconsider the positioning of these.
“Information on the homepage should be arranged according to what the visitors need to know… This should drive an interactive process of design and evaluation.” (Bevan, 2004, p2). Consequently, ICAS may want to look at the design of the ICAEW website (www.icaew.co.uk). Here the needs of the user are met immediately – there are specific sections for members, students, learning and professional development and technical and business topics. These sections are separated into boxes each with a different header colour for ease of reference. This is one thing that ICAS have not done. On their website you need to scroll to the bottom of the page before finding a link for members and students. This is something that they may want to think about improving.
Following on from this, they may consider the use of tabs along the top of the screen instead of down the left hand side. This is also a format used in the ICAEW website and it immediately lets the user see the menu of services on offer instead of scrolling down to find their preferred service.
The overall look of a website should be clean, uncluttered, professional and attractive (www.write101.com). The way the words look on the page should mirror the concept of the billboard – the words need to stand out. This is definitely not the case in the ICAS website. The font size is too small for some readers to use and the way the text is laid out is not the easiest to read with it in paragraphs. There can be advantages of putting the text in columns as in newspapers and the use of colour can draw attention to headings or important articles.
ICAS use the one colour, blue, throughout their website. Although uniformity can be important, colour stimulation is been seen as important – red and orange are seen to excite whereas blue and green are seen to be soothing (www.write101.com). As in the ICAEW and the ACCA website colour is used intelligently, ICAS may want to take advantage of this to break their information up slightly.
Another problem with the ICAS website is the time it takes to load. This is important as research shows that visitor’s fingers start to move after 8.6 seconds (www.warthog.co.za). Should this statistic be true, ICAS need to reduce the number of pictures as this can substantially reduce the loading speed (http://news.zdnet.co.uk). At present they have pictures of champagne glasses and a picture of their head office on their homepage. They could think about loosing the glasses as this is not really necessary.
Bevan, Nigel, Serco: Usability in Website Design, 2004
www.serco.com/Images/Web%20Paper_tcm3-2251.pdf
www.icaew.co.uk
www.icas.org.uk
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/0,1000000097,39284187-2,00.htm
www.warthog.co.za/news-speeds.htm
www.write101.com/101web.htm
At first glimpse of the home page there is a lot to take in. However, one specific problem is evident. The majority of the website that is shown on the average screen, the top half of the website, is taken up by two prominent adverts – one for the CA magazine and one detailing the ‘mission’ for ICAS. Although these adverts may be relevant, you can not pick up any other important information from the homepage. Therefore, ICAS may want to reconsider the positioning of these.
“Information on the homepage should be arranged according to what the visitors need to know… This should drive an interactive process of design and evaluation.” (Bevan, 2004, p2). Consequently, ICAS may want to look at the design of the ICAEW website (www.icaew.co.uk). Here the needs of the user are met immediately – there are specific sections for members, students, learning and professional development and technical and business topics. These sections are separated into boxes each with a different header colour for ease of reference. This is one thing that ICAS have not done. On their website you need to scroll to the bottom of the page before finding a link for members and students. This is something that they may want to think about improving.
Following on from this, they may consider the use of tabs along the top of the screen instead of down the left hand side. This is also a format used in the ICAEW website and it immediately lets the user see the menu of services on offer instead of scrolling down to find their preferred service.
The overall look of a website should be clean, uncluttered, professional and attractive (www.write101.com). The way the words look on the page should mirror the concept of the billboard – the words need to stand out. This is definitely not the case in the ICAS website. The font size is too small for some readers to use and the way the text is laid out is not the easiest to read with it in paragraphs. There can be advantages of putting the text in columns as in newspapers and the use of colour can draw attention to headings or important articles.
ICAS use the one colour, blue, throughout their website. Although uniformity can be important, colour stimulation is been seen as important – red and orange are seen to excite whereas blue and green are seen to be soothing (www.write101.com). As in the ICAEW and the ACCA website colour is used intelligently, ICAS may want to take advantage of this to break their information up slightly.
Another problem with the ICAS website is the time it takes to load. This is important as research shows that visitor’s fingers start to move after 8.6 seconds (www.warthog.co.za). Should this statistic be true, ICAS need to reduce the number of pictures as this can substantially reduce the loading speed (http://news.zdnet.co.uk). At present they have pictures of champagne glasses and a picture of their head office on their homepage. They could think about loosing the glasses as this is not really necessary.
Bevan, Nigel, Serco: Usability in Website Design, 2004
www.serco.com/Images/Web%20Paper_tcm3-2251.pdf
www.icaew.co.uk
www.icas.org.uk
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/0,1000000097,39284187-2,00.htm
www.warthog.co.za/news-speeds.htm
www.write101.com/101web.htm
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