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March 29, 2001

An initiative to promote a major city in the north of England as the hottest location in the UK for internet companies and attract new businesses and customers has been unveiled - but as Adam Christie reports, all is not what it seems at first.


Naked on to the web

A MULTI-MILLION pound initiative by a development agency to promote a city as the UK's internet hotspot could be thwarted before it has even got off the ground - because its own website is so poorly constructed.

The first page had three "click on" statements: find out about the initiative; become a part of the initiative; and discover what the initiative can do for you.

According to guidance from the UK Department of Trade and Industry, websites have a number of functions - to inform (potential) customers, (potential) staff, (potential) investors and the communities in which organizations operate.

The basic questions should be - who, what, when, where, why, and how - and they should be answered as precisely as possible on the first page of a website.

It would have been easy to do this. A single sentence - perhaps:'EX is an initiative led by the development agency to promote IT and internet enterprise in this city and attract new companies and new business' - is all that is needed.

A link could have been included to a page which explained the nature and corporate status of the development agency.

Only after that, should the options have been presented. Instead, It takes several clicks to find such information.

Indeed, it took the the region's morning newspaper, to reveal that the initiative was being led by the development agency. The web site repeatedly uses the word 'partnerships' without being specific, yet the named contact has a 'gov.uk' e-mail address.

Transparency is essential for credibility, but it is clearly lacking. Suspicion is a powerful emotion - if people aren't 'upfront' then they must surely have something to hide, haven't they?

To make matters worse, the site was out-of-date on the day of the initiative's announcement to the media in late March. It said: 'If you are with us from the start…' - but the start had, by that time, happened.

The errors and short comings mounted up. For a site so specifically promoting its home base, it was galling to find that the contact for the county's internet awards was based in the neighbouring area - a rival for several hundred years.

The site had been designed by a company whose own web page promotes a London address. Does this look good?

Although the company opened an office in the city in August 2000, it takes several clicks on their website to find this out. If the company - which has its logo and a link from every e-HQ website page - is so committed to the city, why isn't the location clearly visible on its first page?

Again, consistency is all. The branding implied that the city should be the headquarters location for IT companies - yet the site designers one web pages implied that THEIR headquarters were in London and that their presence in the northern city was merely a 'branch office'.

Websites can be compared to human bodies; unless they are dressed appropriately, every inappropriate, ugly and revealing wrinkle, spot, and blemish is there for everyone to see.

This initiative's site was a further example of a site that is like a man who has come out of the gents without checking his flies or a woman who has left the ladies with her skirt caught in her underwear.

It isn't always possible to see such faux-pas in mirrors; a second, critical examination is more than worthwhile if unforeseen and unexpected mishaps and potential misunderstandings are to be discovered and corrected before it is too late.

And, as the UK DTI says, 'if people see one thing on your pages that they know is wrong, their confidence in your whole site is undermined'.

Such guidance is freely available - yet supposed leaders either have not learned such fundamental lessons, or they have ignored.

For the city, the development agency and the individuals associated with initiative, what may have been enthusiasm to move quickly has been marred by a lack of attention to detail and lateral thinking that have undermined their cause from the outset.

Although announced to the media at the end of March, a 'Web Working Week' has been planned for late April 2001 - yet the website (again) had only the briefest, unhelpful details, of the event.

The initiative's staff and backers have set themselves a tight time schedule to get their own house in order. It may be impolitic to criticise, but if such individuals set themselves up as "leaders" in the field, they may wish to present themselves appropriately clothed and not show off their image-destroying blemishes to the world.