Online Marketing News - Usability

Booking and researching holidays and flights online has become more and more popular over the last few years. In 2007, the online travel market in the UK was worth £11.2 bn.

Booking a holiday online can be a complicated process, so it's important to make it as easy to use and understand for customers. Many travel websites are frustrating to use, so how does Thomas Cook fare? It's pretty good, but we have nevertheless suggested a few improvements after the jump...

Viewzi offers an alternative to the traditional text view of search results. It recently launched in beta, so we've taken a look.

As many web design firms take on the remit of upgrading a client’s website, it is important to integrate best practice SEO techniques into the web design process.

This will ensure that your client both maintains and benefits from the free rankings available in the organic listings of the major search engines.

No matter how successful an e-commerce site is, there are often ways in which a site can be improved to maintain its appeal to customers and maximise conversions.

We have looked at M&S, Amazon and Tesco already, now we take a look at Next to see what improvements could be made to their website...

Snooth is wine review site that previously covered only the US, but recently launched worldwide and now displays information from sellers in 40 countries.

There are a number of ways for etailers to handle the problem of unavailable items, from not displaying the products at all, or offering customers alternatives.

In last year's Online Retail 2007: Checkout Special report, we advised that customers should not be allowed to begin to purchase items that are out of stock, as this can frustate customers.

A new study has been critical of the quality and accessibility of UK government websites.

The report (pdf), by the Public Accounts Committee, finds that the public sector has some work to do on the usability of its websites - which it says have barely improved since 2001.

I've been looking for a new laptop lately and have been doing my research online at a number of sites.

Two of the best known are PC World and Comet, so how do they measure up?

When one looks at the landscape of the social networking market, it's apparent that most of the major internet companies (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, etc.) have been left behind in one way or another.

Despite the fact that they have a presence in the market, all have played catch-up more than they've led and none has been able to fully cash in on one of the most hyped internet trends ever.

The Guardian's ongoing site redesign continues this week with the launch of an all new sports section, complete with embedded video and enhanced photography.

The Daily Mail launched a new beta version of its website last week and is running it alongside the current layout so users can provide feedback.

We've taken a look at how it shapes up....

Whether you are a new entrant to e-tail or an old hand with large sales volumes, the right content optimisation strategy is vital in order to effectively leverage multivariate testing tools within your organisation.

The number of people using the web is increasing every day, but the adoption rate of RSS as a technology is still way down at 5%.

Email users are more than ready to hit the 'report spam' button for emails they no longer wish to receive, spam or not, so making the unsubscribe process quick and easy is essential.

Still, some email marketers have yet to take this on board if the following example from Real Networks is anything to go by.

Twingly is a new, European blog search engine which has just launched in beta. It aims to beat its rivals by providing "spam-free" results.

Google has evolved its search results to include images, news, recent blog posts, videos and related links.

Let's build a quick to-do list to spruce up your site for Universal Search.

You may have seen print adverts for new website modeurbaine.com.  Leon Bailey suggests five improvements the website should have made before embarking on an advertising campaign.

I read an interesting article on usability and user experience posted recently on this site by Tom Stewart, the Chair of the sub-committee of the International Standards Organisation (ISO), which is responsible for the revision of ISO 13407, the international standard for Human Centred Design.

We are in the process of redesigning our site for a new platform being developed for release later this year, and the aforementioned article got me thinking about the planning for the design of a website.

Recent reported accessibility problems with American Express' web statements exemplify a common challenge for financial service websites and those reliant on PDFs.

Marks & Spencer revamped its website last year, and enjoyed a successful Christmas online, increasing its web sales by 78% in the 13 weeks to the end of December.

The M&S website scored badly in a usability study last year though, so there may still be room for improvement to the user experience.

We've identified 10 areas of the site that M&S may want to take a look at...