It does not matter if the website is working and making good money and turning over $$$millions – all the design and marketing students say it MUST be changed, to comply with convention and usability studies written by people who write books. Pay attention to them!

You are a nit, Alvin! You should pay attention to the people who know the theory back to front! If it doesn’t work IN THEORY then they are correct! Your 90 years of experience are showing your naïvety in making money and business. If you went back to school and read more books, you would know you should junk everything that works and pays your bills. Nit.

Ling
LINGsCARS

“Yes there is always a risk with changing a site, but usability is one of those things that is proven to improve the relationship between the customer and business. If they are able to use the site, they are more likely to engage with it – which is key to building any type of website; Lingscars wants more paying customers and my charity site wanted more people understanding the charity. Both of these sites need engagement to work.”

why fix something that is not broken.?

Afraid your analogy with charity sites does not work,unless you really don’t want paying customers to contribute.?

Cause if you really only want people to understand the charity,then afraid that will not feed the worlds starving.

I suspect most websites want paying one way or another.

I really want people to give their views and opinions, Jess. Just stop trotting out your opinions on how to ride a bike without pointing out that you have never stepped off your own tricycle.

Whereas in truth, few people have experience of running a website which supports many employees and creates jobs. Anyone can make a website for fun, or get a job working for a website… but few people actually do it themselves.

It’s as if you are thinking “These *weird* websites work in practice, I just can’t figure out how to make them work in theory”.

These websites work. Whether you *like* them, or know *why* they work is a different matter. Alvin and I know why they work, and it’s simple: it’s because the Great British Public LIKE them. Remarkably, using the opinions of Information Technology and Web Marketing students are not the best ways of keeping a business afloat.

No offence

Ling
LINGsCARS

I also do not appreciate the competitiveness of ‘who has the most experience’ and ‘who has the better website’ – not all websites are set up in the same way as the e-commerce website of Ling – there are many different facets and requirements for developing sites. One of the websites I developed was for a non-profit charity as an information site, so how can you compare the business benefit there? It’s all apples and oranges, and Ling and Alvin – you need to understand that there are other site types out there.

Yes there is always a risk with changing a site, but usability is one of those things that is proven to improve the relationship between the customer and business. If they are able to use the site, they are more likely to engage with it – which is key to building any type of website; Lingscars wants more paying customers and my charity site wanted more people understanding the charity. Both of these sites need engagement to work.

If you don’t want to take the advice provided, then that’s fine. But stop retaliating to everyone else’s views. Just as much as you are entitled to your view, they are entitled to theirs.

It also might convert at a lower rate if certain elements were changed.

My view is simple: the site could be converting at higher amounts, if usability and design were given greater attention.

I suspect Ling was just making general observation about the reality of life on the web.