MyCanaryWharf.com Site Review

This morning as I was browsing around the local “The Docklands” newspaper I came across a full page advert for “Santa’s Arrival” – an event to be help in the Canary Wharf on the 24th of November.

I thought this was an excellent event to take my two daughters and decided to book the tickets online. The advert clearly mentioned the fact that there were only a limited number of seats available and that tickets are on a first come fir served basis. It also mentioned the web site – www.mycanarywharf.com as the pace to visit for the booking.

So I log on to the Canary Wharf web site and my impressions were quite positive. The design is clean and the layout is uncluttered. There is a huge heading on the top that says “MyCanaryWharf Shops & Restaurants” and the top right corner, a logo that says “Urban Style”. I thought that “Urban Style” was like a sponsor or some thing but the logo is hyper-linked to the same place (1).

Anyway, so I start looking for the booking link for the “Santa’s Arrival” event for which Canary Wharf had put out a full page advert. I spent a good two minutes scanning the page but could find no mention of that event. So I started looking for a link to the events section of the web site. The “events” link is called “What’s On” (2). Perhaps it is stylish in quite urban but menu items should be clear and self explanatory. It took me a few milliseconds to realize that “What’s On” might have a list of events. Not much time wasted but for a casual visitor this starts to erode one’s patience.

So I click on the “What’s On” and am greeted by the events page. Nice and simple layout again and I can see a list of events quite clearly. The second entry is for the “Santa’s Arrival” event. So I move my mouse over the heading title so I can click it to get the to the actual page related that event. Amazingly the heading title of each event is not hyper-linked (3). Of course because of nice CSS styling none of the hyperlinks look like hyperlinks but one of the basic rules of usability is to hyperlink heading titles as well as the “more…” links (4).

Anyway, I finally get to the event detail page and find some good information on the actual event (5). However there is not mention of booking tickets, a link to the booking section or even a phone number where one should call to book tickets!

I spent a further 10 minutes trying to find the link to the booking section thinking that perhaps I had missed it some where. Not finding one I promptly send the admin an email outlining this issue. This goes to show that usability issues on a web site (big or small) would really erode confidence on the whole brand itself.

UPDATE: I got a call from Leah, Canary Wharf admin about the email I had sent them. She apologized for the inconvenience and said that reason the link for booking is missing is because the tickets had sold out. I appreciate the fact that she had taken the time to call me back. However perhaps a small note on the web site indicating the same would be much better.

Amazon.co.uk Support System

I have been a regular buyer at Amazon.co.uk for the past 4 years. I have purchased 100s of pounds worth of books, DVDs and more.

In all these years I have never had a single problem. Amazon is a fantastic brand with a superb business model and top rate customer service to support that. In fact they have been on the forefront when it comes to introducing cutting edge usability features on their website and more.

A couple of days ago, I went online (amazon.co.uk) and ordered 3 nursery rhyme DVD for my daughter. On all three items, it said that if I paid for express delivery, it would be delivered before 1PM the next day. So paid £ 7.65 for express delivery.

I expected the items to arrive on Thursday, 15th Nov. But they never did. So I waited till today (16th Nov) and then logged into my account on Amazon.co.uk to find out what was going on. To my great surprise, I saw a message that told me that the estimated delivery date was 13 Dec – 28 Dec!

At first I thought there was some kind of system error. But when I clicked on my orders and went deeper, I saw the same message. So I tried to see if I can talk to some one about this. I check for support options and do not see any visible phone numbers.

I then keep clicking on the support related links till I get to a screen where there was some sort of option to request a call back. So click on that and this is the first screen:

So I enter the phone number and click on submit. I get an error. I try again and again and after 4 times I gave up. This is the error:

Another issue I encountered with the site that I found disturbing is when I tried to access the support system on Mozilla FireFox. This is the screen shot of the how the screen comes up. You can not see any thing and there is no way you can make the window bigger!

I think a brand such as Amazon should have a better support system. At least they should explain why a particular order is delayed etc. Also they should test their site on all browsers to make sure they have cross browser compatibility.

I am not angry with Amazon yet because of my loyalty to the brand. But as every ones knows it is very easy to lose the loyalty. Of course with a brand like Amazon, because there are fewer competitors out there, the consumer would be left with not much choice.

Phone 4 U Branding

I have been watching the Phones 4 U adverts on TV for quite some time and am baffled at how bad they are.

The TV adverts typically show a bunch of really odd looking people with really odd expressions. The setting is usually a sea side town (probably Brighton) and the colors are all washed out and you get the feeling you are watching an old 70′s ad. The characters in the ad seem to suffer from a variety of issues such as poverty and brain damage.

The anchor in the advert turns up at this sea side town and tries to suggest that these odd characters need mobile phones. But I begin to wonder, who is Phones4U is saying is their target market? Why are they making fun of people with disabilities?

Or, are they saying that they treat their customers as if they were morons or some thing? Personally I thing this kind of branding is quite bad.