Home > News > 2001 > May 2001 > Quo vadis, BW website?
Quo vadis, BW website?
After two years of Barnett Waddingham on the internet, website managing editor Adam Walker from Barnett Waddingham's London office asks for your comments and suggestions as to how we can continue to provide an informative and useful service.
One of the most interesting aspects of looking after the Barnett Waddingham website is receiving feedback from site visitors.
Approximately 1% of the feedback is disparaging or just plain hostile. Around 9% comes from people who spot mistakes or technical problems, or who would like to disagree with or debate a given point; these comments can be extremely useful, as they help us to polish things up and clarify or correct information which we publish. About 90% of our feedback is extremely positive, which is very encouraging for those involved with the website.
So many thanks to the 90% for your good wishes, and rest assured that we do not propose to recline on our laurels. While we are delighted to know that some clients have even bookmarked our site as their homepage (the premier accolade one can receive in the web community from one's visitors), the best aspect of those goodwill messages is that they tend to highlight the features of our site that people like the most.
This is important, because after two years of the same design and presentation, a reassessment of the BW website is underway. People involved in website development often display similar characteristics to the obsessive artist or mad scientist, in that their site can become the birth of a masterpiece, which will not be complete until it is aesthetically irreproachable and stuffed with state-of-the-art technical gimmickry. We would prefer to play to the strengths that people have identified, and which we hope will make people continue to visit us.
The features of our site that people most specifically applaud include:
- Speed of loading. We have tried to keep clutter down to optimise this.
- Clarity of presentation. Many of our clients (and dare I say it, particularly our more senior clients) dislike the tendency of many websites to substitute proliferation of colours, features and flashy animated bits for content.
- Substantive content. We try to produce articles which are relevant and provide a little extra insight into pensions issues.
- The pictures. Those clients who don't have face-to-face contact with us often say that it's nice to know what we look like. (We would like to point out that we would be happy to come and show you what we look like, in person, for no extra fee, if you so wish!)
This roll-call of the BW site's apparent virtues is not for posterity, but hopefully will set you thinking about what we might set as goals for our website in the near future. As the archive of articles grows, a better navigation system is certainly needed, and a new layout to the opening page has been suggested for freshness, but any input from you about how we might improve would be most welcome. You might even feel that some of the strengths listed above are in fact holding us back.
Please feel free to e-mail us with any comments on the site.
Adam Walker, May 2001.