For starters, I love DIRECTV.

However, I’m wondering when they (and other satellite & cable providers) will begin to think differently about how they present channel guides both online and via the TV remote?

Here’s DIRECTV’s guide:

These are mainly local channels. Wouldn’t it be better to offer a filter that said “Local Channels” that I could click and see these? I’m not familiar enough with the Station IDs to know if they represent ABC, NBC, CBS, etc. Sure, I can generally tell by the programming listed, but still. This would never fly on a major retailer website for listing products this way.

If TV stations were like consumer products…

If this were an e-commerce site, end-users would be driven away if they were forced to only view products by numerical product ID and a short-code. Through history of channel surfing by number, I suppose this method of thinking is engrained in many people’s minds.

However, with the volume of channels being what they are, presenting them in numerical channel order is a growing usability challenge. I live in a world where I DVR virtually everything and watch it at a later date. I am completely channel number and station ID agnostic — I honestly don’t know what channels “my shows” are on.

Searching for TV shows

Let’s look at keyword search results for “olympics”

Support topics are shown first. Then site pages.  Hopefully there’s research to support this ordering, but generally speaking, a topic like “olympics” is probably more related to TV programming than a support article. “Satellite doesn’t work” would certainly be a reason to show support articles first. Below the fold (scrolling down on a 20″ monitor) I see 5 results for TV programming.

I don’t know what NBCw vs. NBCwHD means. Unfortunately there’s no title for me to click on to find out why this matched my search for “olympics.” Let’s click “view all”:

More empty titles. Again, search results displayed by channel and then by date with no sorting options.

DIRECTV offers a slick option to “Record to DVR” from their website. As such, having the ability to filter search results by content rather than channel and date/time is important because on the web and with the ability to “Record to DVR”, the channel and date/time are irrelevant.

After CNN.com launched their redesign in October (before & after screenshots and analysis here), I found myself without a convenient home for news relevant to my interests and attention span.

Old design = 20 headlines to scan. New design = 72 headlines to scan.

Previously, CNN.com provided a 2-headline synopsis of across 10 categories and at any given time throughout the day, I could visit their homepage and get a quick run-down of all that was going on in the world.

With the latest redesign, this quick run-down became much more time-consuming. And there was no way to tailor the news categories to my preferences. The previous website didn’t offer this option either and was less important, but the new design now features 6 headlines across 12 categories.

That’s 72 headlines I now have to scan as opposed to the previous 20 headlines. This is a huge increase in content and considerably more “work” to scan.

Google’s “news” personalization, simplicity, and path of least resistance wins

I ventured upon news.google.com and found it quite easy to personalize the sections I am interested as well as sort them in the order of importance I want them to be in. This feature in itself was enough to win me over — the way in which they aggregate news from multiple publications is also a benefit.

CNN.com’s one-size-fits-all approach to homepage news doesn’t appeal to me anymore. I’ve abandoned them because I’ve found an alternate service that meets my needs. What’s interesting is CNN provides unique content but this is not enough to win me over because it’s too difficult to get the information I desire quickly.

A commoditized business should focus product innovation on user experience and ease of use

“News” as a product is commoditized and is partially why newspapers are on the decline. If the product research or delivery mechanism doesn’t cater to the changing needs of consumers or customers, then business will be lost to the competitive set. This concept applies to virtually all business, and not just news websites.

CNN.com offers a beautiful new redesign, but has chosen a path that devalues consumers who share my news-consumption preference. I don’t know if this is intentional or not, but through further insight-gathering and subsequent innovation with their website, they would recapture my interest.

This is the first installment of a 3-part series of online pizza configurators. This 3-part series is part of a larger series of blog posts reviewing online product configurator experiences.

Step 1: The homepage

• After visiting the homepage of PizzaHut.com, you see a very clear “Order Now” button. No confusion here.

Step 2: Enter delivery address

• My primary concern here is whether or not Pizza Hut recognizes my address since our home is newer and is often not found in mapping databases like Google Maps or Mapquest. No issues here — it lets me proceed with my order, no questions asked.

Step 3: Pizza menu

• Body of page: The featured products tab is highlighted by default and I see two featured products.
• Right-hand side of page: Here it clearly shows my order is for delivery and which Pizza Hut location will be delivering my order. This is helpful because if I change my mind and order this for carryout, I may want to pick up from a different location (i.e. if I’m ordering from work and swing by a different location on the way home). Smart.
• Cons:
  • There’s an unusual amount of white space due to the right-hand side of the page containing an advertisement reminding me “don’t forget dessert!” Recommendation: This may benefit from more relevant placement after I’ve added an item to my current order.

Step 4: Building the first pizza of the challenge

• No search. As mentioned in a previous post in the Outback configurator, there are no search options on PizzaHut.com. Since I understand the products, I can generally find what I need, however I’m looking for “deep dish” pizza which means “pan pizza” on the Pizza Hut website. Subtle difference, and a search option would ultimately clear this up for me either by returning the Pan Pizza result or providing me a “did you mean pan pizza?” alternate search.
• View Larger Image: I took these screen shots in Safari 4 and unfortunately this link does not work. Recommendation: at this point it may be more relevant to use the page real estate to show some pricing (i.e. Small Starting at $9.99, Medium Starting at $11.99, Large Starting at $13.99).

Step 5: Configuring the first pizza

• This preselects the crust as “Pan Pizza” based on the item chosen in Step 4. It can optionally be changed to another crust type at this point.

• The defaulted list of options.

• Pros:
  • Straight-forward — intuitive option layout indicating you can have sauce, cheese, and other toppings on the left, right, or whole of the pizza.
  • Based on the criteria outlined in this pizza configurator challenge, I was able to successfully build the pizza I wanted without confusion
• Cons:
  • “x2″ while less intuitive means twice the topping. I’m not sure why sauce and cheese doesn’t have a “x2″ option — instead these both have an alternate selection called “EXTRA.” Recommendation: When user interfaces are inconsistent, it leads to confusion. If you’re doubling the topping or adding extra, it’s typically best to utilize the same user interface options for selecting this.
  • No pricing is listed, so you don’t know how much additional toppings will cost. In fact, as I will point out later, you can never understand how the cost of the pizza is calculated because you only ever see the total cost. If you are on a budget, you have to guess your way through the pizza configurator and hope that you land within your price range. Recommendation: Show the surcharge next to each topping. There’s enough page real estate to do it, so there shouldn’t be any layout challenges in doing so.

Step 6: Add first pizza to order

• Pros:
  • As you add items to your order, they are shown on the right-hand side of the screen. This is helpful if placing a large order to ensure you don’t miss a line item.
• However, what’s wrong with this picture? No details on the pizza. If you have multiple pizzas on an order, it would be impossible to tell the difference between them all. Let’s click on “Show details.”

• Cons:
  • This reads rather unfriendly for me. Recommendation: A bulleted list would be more appropriate using the graphical indicators like on the configurator screen to indicate which side of the pizza the toppings are being added to.
  • Again, no pricing to indicate surcharges for the extra toppings. Recommendation: Showing surcharges by topping would enable consumers to edit the configured pizza and add, remove, or substitute toppings that make sense for their budget. If my budget is $15.00, nobody wins by not showing me the surcharges because I’ll play with the various configurations until I get my order to be in the budget I’m working within.

Step 10: Configuring the second pizza

• The second part of the challenge is to order a large, hand-tossed pizza with as many toppings as possible to test the limits of the pizza configurator. Here we go:

• I was able to select every possible topping. However:

• Cons:
  • After the 6th topping, this message popped up each time I added an additional topping. Recommendation: If you can’t successfully make something, then it probably shouldn’t be offered for purchase.
  • If you do still offer to make it, is there any guarantee that it will be fully cooked? Or do the cooks just throw their hands up after the pizza rolls through the oven? Recommendation: The error message is a bit vague and while I understand there may be problems, I would rather be restricted from ordering it at all if there’s going to be an issue with the product…or at least be provided with a means for contacting the store for special instructions for cooking.

Step 11: Add second pizza to order

• Exact same concern as in step #6 above. This time the problem is evident. How do two large pizzas amount to $52.82? Let’s click “Show Details” to see.

• Cons:
  • Same concerns as #6 with the addition of the following insight:
  • Toppings aside, there’s no way to see how much each pizza on this order costs. For the budget-conscious, this presents a problem. When I got to the local Pizza Hut, I get an itemized breakdown on my receipt, shouldn’t the website behave similarly?

Step 12: Checkout

• I’m showing the checkout pages to illustrate any additional merchandising efforts and here Pizza Hut is promoting stuffed pizza roles and P’zone pizzas.
• Pros:
  • This is a nice layout, easy to understand pricing, easy to see how to add to cart. Plus, they have provided photos at the top of the merchandising offer which show the products.
• Cons:
  • On their main menu, they had a right-hand advertisement saying “don’t forget the dessert!” However, here I am at the checkout page and I don’t have the dessert, but they are not promoting dessert — they are trying to sell me products that could essentially amount to an entire meal on their own. Recommendation: This is an example of a missed merchandising opportunity because the website isn’t smart enough to realize I already have my main course in the cart, ready to check out. They should be targeting other items to compliment my order. (This appears to be a trend as I review more sites, Outback suffers from it, too)

(Brief) User Experience Analysis

Pizza Hut’s site suffers from browser-specific issues in Safari that have been prominent for a couple years (as long as I’ve used Safari, actually). While these do not hinder my ability to place orders, it’s the equivalent to eating at one of those wobbly restaurant tables (because the floor isn’t level). While this doesn’t deter you from leaving, it sure is a nuisance and plays into the overall customer experience.

Outside of this, I personally use Pizza Hut’s ordering site the most primarily because we choose carryout a lot and it’s one of the closer locations to our home. The very fact that they have a configurator is reason enough for us to choose Pizza Hut over another local pizza establishment because of the convenience of ordering online.

A comprehensive analysis of Pizza Hut, Papa John’s, and Domino’s configurators will follow after each review is posted. Stay tuned for my next review of the Papa John’s pizza configurator as a part of this “building your pizza online” series of posts.

vs.

vs.

This is the third post in a series of product configurator reviews and I’ll review the online configuration process for ordering pizzas. Pizza is a simple product which everyone understands, so the product configurator probably needs to be less about form and more about function. At the end of the day however, these online configurators are designed to sell food that should be appealing to the potential buyer and we’ll walk through the “build your own pizza” order process from each of these nationwide chains.

The Rules

Like any good usability study and to properly benchmark each product configurator, the intent is to use each configurator for the same exact purpose. Here’s what we’ll be walking through on each of the configurators:

1. Configure an order for delivery to my home address
2. Build 1 pizza with the following:
   1. Large deep dish crust
   2. Extra cheese on the entire pizza
   3. Pepperoni on 1/2 of the pizza (because that’s all my wife likes)
   4. Sausage, green peppers, and onions on the other 1/2 (for me)
3. Build a second pizza with the following:
   1. Large hand-tossed crust
   2. As many toppings as possible (to push the constraints of the configurator)
4. See the individual costs of each pizza, delivery surcharges, and taxes. While this is making my hungry while writing, I unfortunately will not be placing my order.

The Purpose/Goal

The purpose of this is to identify the site with the best configurator. “Best” is defined as:

1. Easiest to use/navigate
2. Fewest clicks
3. High degree of confidence that the order will be accurate when received by the store
4. Visually appealing — it should make me want to order the product!

Let’s see how each site stacks up!

PizzaHut.com

At an estimated 2.4 Million U.S. visitors per month, Pizzahut.com is ranked at #523 in the Quantcast index. PizzaHut.com ranks highest among these three sites in terms of Quantcast-estimated traffic. That equates to a substantial number of configured orders every month from consumers ordering online.

PapaJohns.com

At an estimated 1.5 Million U.S. visitors per month, PapaJohns.com is ranked at #1,006 in the Quantcast index.

Dominos.com

At an estimated 1.7 Million U.S. visitors per month, Dominos.com is ranked at #855 in the Quantcast index, slightly above PapaJohns.com but still behind PizzaHut.com.

The Usability Challenge

Due to the number of screen shots, each site is covered in a separate blog post:

1. View the PizzaHut.com Pizza Configurator Usability Challenge
2. View the PapaJohns.com Pizza Configurator Usability Challenge (link will be updated after the review is complete)
3. View the Dominos.com Pizza Configurator Usability Challenge (link will be updated after the review is complete)
4. View the Final Analysis (link will be updated after all 3 reviews are complete)

This is the second post in an ongoing series of product configurator reviews in which I review the online configuration process on websites.

Recently I placed my first online order with Outback Steakhouse for curbside pickup. I appreciated the ability to order online but found some usability concerns that I’d like to outline in this post. Prior to this online order, I was neither aware of online ordering or curbside pickup at Outback. This is mostly due to the fact that we do not frequently dine there (2-3 times per year on average).

The purpose of this post is to articulate how user experience in a physical store environment (in this case, the Outback restaurant) is not always reflected online. Companies large and small need to factor the physical experience requirements with the virtual experience requirements. If an Outback restaurant was presented like their online ordering experience is presented, there would be few repeat purchasers.

On with the screen shot reviews:

Step 1: Main Menu

My initial reactions:

• No search. This is an area that I haven’t seen many online restaurants embrace, yet. If I know what I want, I should be able to search for it. However, I can somewhat understand why it’s not offered because restaurants generally try to emulate their physical menus — which obviously do not offer searching capabilities.
• One long, scrollable menu. The left-hand navigation is a series of anchor points. This was an interesting concept that didn’t bother me, but came across as non-standard. This layout would be more of a problem if there were a lot of pictures.
• Lack of pictures. The only menu item with a picture is the Aussie-Tizers at the very top. This is an online merchandising faux pax. Hard to up-sell someone, especially with food, if you can’t see what it looks like — this is why restaurants typically have the “dessert cart” to show off / upsell their desserts when you think you can’t fit anything else in your stomach.

Step 2: “Configuring” Baby Back Ribs?

• Clicking a red link in the left column forces the right column of the browser window to refresh.
• OK, I see Baby Back Ribs on the right-hand side of my screen.
• I have to click on links in the right-hand side to further configure this order (i.e. “click to substitute”).
• Usability concern: Clicking on links generally takes me away to another page (I want to order Baby Back Ribs — will I need to re-add them to my cart after leaving this page because I’m not clicking “Add to Order” yet?). Very non-standard.

Step 3: “Configuring” the sides

• I “click to substitute” Aussie Fries for a Signature Side Salad (if you’ve ever ordered fries with a curbside pickup order from any restaurant, you know that the fries are soggy by the time they make it back to your house).
• I don’t understand what “Special Instructions” are for. In my first pass through their site (before taking screenshots), I entered my salad dressing type here. The last thing I wanted was a salad without salad dressing.

Step 4: Choose side salad type

• Right-hand part of the page has refreshed again, now asking me for a salad type. Again, not that I personally need them, but showing pictures here would really help upsell to other types of sides/salads. Instead I go for the old faithful “House Salad.”

Step 5: Choose salad dressing

• Page refreshes again and asks me for the salad dressing type. For some reason, this is a drop-down menu instead of radio buttons like the previous page. Subtle interface issues like this make for additional usability concerns when switching question/answer display types.

Step 6: (Upsell time) Salad or Soup?

• I just completed 3 separate clicks to override Aussie Fries for a Salad, chose my salad type, then chose my salad dressing. Now I’m being asked if I want a side salad? This configurator is not intelligent enough to detect if you’ve already ordered what it’s asking you for.
• “Click add to order to proceed” is counter-intuitive. If I don’t want anything, then I shouldn’t be taking the action to “add to order” my “No soup or salad” option. A simple “no thanks, skip this option” would be more appropriate wording.

Step 7: Additional add-ons?

• I just got finished making it through 6 separate pages and I still have not added Baby Back Ribs to my order.
• Again, trying to up-sell without supporting photos of these “Add-on Mates”
• Like in step #6, counter-intuitive use of “click Add to Order to proceed”
• And the mysterious “special instructions” field still exists — I’m not sure what instructions I would add here? It would help if they provided examples of what information they would look for here.

Step 8: Completed Baby Back Ribs “configuration”

• 8 pages later and many more clicks than that, I have added Baby Back Ribs to my order. That’s quite a few clicks and now I’m really hungry.
• Other concerns about this page include:
  • Tax is only estimated and may vary by store location. There is technology available to accurately calculate tax for each individual store.
  • “No Add-On Mates, Thank you (click Add to Order to proceed” is an actual “option” on this order. This is not user-friendly.
  • Would like to see the ability to duplicate an item in the order

Overall User Experience Analysis

The non-standard navigation (split left & right columns), numerous clicks for ordering Baby Back Ribs, no indicator as to how many steps are in the process to configure an item on the order, and the overall lack of standard online shopping functions (photos, sorting by price/name, searching, etc.) put this site near the bottom of the “easy of use” list for me, personally.

Had this been a local mom & pop restaurant, I would have called in my order because I would not have trusted the website enough. Because Outback is a well-known brand name, I was able to look past these usability flaws and place my order online. I would speculate that by making usability improvements to eliminate these barriers, they would see more curbside orders being placed online and their call-in orders would decrease.

Product configurators should imitate real life guided selling

In the real world, if a waiter would have walked through the same set of questions I had answered on the website, it would have aggravated me: When I substituted the side salad for Aussie Fries, I should not have been asked again if I would’ve liked a side salad for an additional $2.50. This is where product configurators online need to reflect real-life scenarios and not function like a computer running through a list of questions.

Fortunately, most people “get” the restaurant ordering experience and can look past these usability flaws. However, for manufacturers and retailers selling products which consumers do not purchase often, product configurators must be highly intuitive, helpful, and be positioned to up-sell but most importantly to answer questions about the basic options being presented to consumers.