In terms of resources, few industries can compete with the automotive industry. As a group, it is the biggest advertiser in the country. While I often wonder why so many large brand websites have terrible design issues, automakers really have no excuse. Take Volvo, for example. There are very few auto brands with similar strength of history or reputation, but Volvo's site does not reflect an image of strength. From my perspective, the Volvo site makes three key endemic mistakes.
1. Home page information overload
It is critical to be efficient with words. If we hold up as examples Apple's success with its "1,000 songs in your pocket" campaign, and Stella Artois' "Perfection has its price," it is easy to see that less is definitely more. Blame it on the bad advice of SEO and SEM consultants, who insist that keywords appear frequently everywhere, especially on the homepage. Nevertheless, information-heavy homepages turn consumers off. It is great if consumers can easily find your homepage, but when they leave quickly in frustration, you have lost.
The Volvo homepage contains 40 words just within the main promotional area and another 46 links within the page. While it's hard for brands to make an impact without a core message to center around, it is virtually impossible to build brand excitement around a series of speeding bullet points. The main image and bulleted messaging rotates every five seconds -- the user cannot even read the entire text until it has cycled at least twice. Excessive text that rotates too quickly for the average person to read is a great way to get your consumers visiting your competitors' websites.
2. Lack of visual hierarchy
While countless hours are dedicated to information architecture, I am surprised by how often visual hierarchy is ignored. The Volvo site lacks appropriate usage of size, color and gradient -- all of which help the consumer prioritize the information presented in the manner the brand intended. The site contains redundant links such as "Design" and "Gallery," which compete with other more important links such as "Learn More."
The light tones used throughout the site make it difficult for the average user to navigate it. Robust and more important elements, such as "Learn More," should be prominent enough to impact brand equity and consumer behavior.
3. Absence of leadership
On successful websites, consumers follow an engagement funnel with clear direction dictated by the brand. For an automaker, the engagement funnel typically commences with exposing a core brand message, followed by an introduction of key models, empowering photos and specifications. Ultimately, the funnel ends with consumers locating a dealership.
By placing equal weight on all links and options, the Volvo website does not demonstrate branding leadership with its messaging. Users are encouraged to follow sub-optimal content -- rather than registering at the site to receive news and unique offers from their local Volvo dealer. The equal weighting of options, in combination with the lack of visual hierarchy, exacerbates the leadership problem, creating a site that is counterproductive to building excitement and branding.
Do not get me wrong -- consumers want options and all the relevant information. However, brands, like good dance partners, need to take the lead on their websites with clear brand messaging, site navigation and leadership. Ultimately, I do not think Volvo lost a lot of equity or purchase intent from me. But the site did seed a negative question in this viewer's mind: Could a car company's site engineering reflect the engineering of the cars it manufacturers? In this case, I sure hope not.
Jeff Rosenblum is the co-founder and co-president of Questus.