IS YOUR SITE AN INTERNET BULLY?

When I was in sixth grade, there was this big goon
in my class who terrorized all the kids, especially
the small ones. His favorite trick was to grab the
cap off my head (and in a -25 degree Canadian winter,
this was not as amusing as it sounds). He’d dangle
it just out of my grasp; now bringing it tantalizingly
close; now snatching it away.

Irritating.

Aggravating.

Sometimes, I just gave up and went home without it.

Well, today that bully is still following me around.
Only now, he’s changed shapes and multiplied. 21st
century bullies are all the web designers who dangle
their information just beyond my reach and won’t let
me “get it.”

Let me give you a few examples.

BULLY #1: I recently stumbled upon an absolutely
gorgeous website. You could tell a lot of thought
had gone into its lush design: an Egyptian theme
throughout; rich earth tones; 3D-effect wallpaper;
jeweltone click buttons. It was everything the gods
of esthetics prescribe.

But I couldn’t figure out what in i9bet41.ninja the name of
Nefertiti they were selling.

The home page had no menu and gave no hint where to
click to proceed inside. I moused around until I
finally found the c-spot which took me to a second
page that also had no menu and no information. I
clicked again. And again. This painfully slow-
loading site forced me to click four times before
it coughed up some product information. Yawn.

GRADE SCHOOL LESSON: If your visitors are still
groping around in the dark after two or three clicks,
they’ll go home without their caps.

BULLY #2: Even the pros screw up sometimes. Here’s
the story of how a major airline bullies its online
visitors.

I dropped in to their website recently with two
objectives: to get flight information; and to learn
about their frequent user program. Well, I got my
flight information, no problem. But here’s what
happened when I tried to get a basic explanation of
their rewards program:

I found the program, let’s call it Fflyer, listed on
the home page and clicked. It brought me to a menu
where I logically (or so I thought) selected “the
basics”. This delivered me to yet another menu with
options like “how to claim your reward”, “elite
program” and “newsletter”. But no “About Us” page,