Designer's Gallery - Web Site Designs: links to online examples of Web-based performance support features and systems.STEP A web-based performance support system
STEPS is an electronic performance support system designed specifically to facilitate teachers in the development of instructional lessons, units, and curricula aligned to Florida's Sunshine State Standards. (2001-05-06)OfficeMax, Staples top list of e-tail survey
According to the Consumer Reports Online survey of e-tailers specializing in office supplies, the clear navigation and easy ordering process of Staples resulted in an overall "stress-free operation" (2001-04-08)Home page best practices
ZDNet E-commerce: The home page is the site's chance to create a good first impression. A well-designed home page welcomes shoppers and helps them fulfill their shopping goals. A badly designed page will confuse visitors, delay them, or just plain stop them in their tracks. This articles provides examples of both good and bad homepages. (2001-03-25)E-Commerce Site Extras
ZDNet E-commerce: Smart e-tailers build in features to make each customer more profitable. These sites sport effective features that enhance the buying experience or help sell more or sell later. (2001-03-25)Mass. state Web site in line for overhaul
Boston Globe: The new state Web site, www.mass.gov, will organize information by task rather than by agency. If someone wants to start a business, for example, he'll be able to click on a single icon that walks him through the appropriate applications and services. That same entrepreneur now would have to separately contact the Department of Revenue, the Department of Employment and Training, the Department of Economic Development, and several other state agencies. (2001-03-18)Richard Saul Wurman's Understanding
This is a very interesting site. It uses charts and graphics to communicate information about life in the United States. You will need a large monitor and the Flash plug-in to view the site. (2001-03-18)eSynerProject.com - a Project Management Performance Support Web Site
While this site suffers from some design inconsistencies and poor graphics, it is a reasonably good example of a performance support system. The site is design to help project managers. It contains online tutorials, templates, examples of deliverables, a extensive list of the competencies for project managers, detailed methodologies, and the ability to ask question of an expert. This link goes to the demo site that shows some of the features of the full service.
Comment: Since project management is a sequential process, the site could be even more beneficial if it had an obvious and highly visible way to get information and resources in the appropriate sequence or project phase. (2001-01-07)Don’t Ignore the Obvious: Site Content
CyberScrutiny Update: While often neglected, good content is a critical component of a successful Web business. REI.com provides one of the best examples of the power of good content. The big outdoor and sporting goods retailer’s site provides a huge amount of relevant information for their customers – including articles combined with information about related products. REI’s online conversion rate – the percentage of visitors who actually make a purchase – hovers at around 10%, in contrast to the online average of 2%. (2000-12-03)Best examples of e-commerce
ZDNet E-Commerce: This is a complete list of the best E-Commerce sites on the web. The list was compiled by ZDNet and Creative Good. The sites are selected on the basis of their usability. (2000-11-19)Performance Support Tools by American Media
This page contains links to descriptions and demos of 3 performance support systems that help people deal with organizational and personnel issues. "The Consultant on Teamwork Challenges is an electronic performance support system—an online tool that enables employees to access step-by-step, visual-based answers to 10 of the toughest teamwork challenges—right on their desktops." (2000-11-05)Sharper Staples
The ComputerWord.com article describes many of the usability issue Staples.com encountered and how they resolved them. Staples was able cut the number of customers who abandoned its site by 75% on one page by adding a clear description of the reason for requesting a customer's zip code. (2000-09-17)Forbes.com Best of the Web
"To help keep your memory from getting clogged, Best of The Web editors have sorted through thousands of Web pages to come up with our fall list of the top 300 sites." (2000-09-04)Interactive Product Pages™
This site is a demo of Interactive Product Pages, an interesting application for presenting product information. The pages uses Dynamic HTML to quickly show and hide information. The product also contains a feature called eNotes, that lets user select information and either display it for printing or get an email version. (2000-08-27)Enterprise Rent-a-Car Web Site Review
The Enterprise rent-a-car Web site is a good example of a performance-centered design. The design illustrates how a simple and relatively uncluttered design can help people quickly achieve their goal of reserving a rental car. (2000-08-20)Evaluating Barnes & Noble's New Web Site
According to Jakob Nielsen "BN.com is vastly better than the original design of Barnesandnoble.com, which I reviewed in Internet World March 9, 1998. The original site was bloated and useless and was clearly made by severely clue-impaired designers." (2000-08-20)Purina Cat Chow Web Site Design
This well designed site contains information about caring for your cat and lets you ask questions of experts in the field of cat care. It's a very interesting example of how a company that is in the business of selling a product uses information to build a trust relationship with it's consumers. (2000-07-30)StateFarm Life Events
The Life Events page on the State Farm site lets one find information related to such life events as getting married, having a child, or retiring. Each life events page contains a brief description of the event and links to information and tools such as calculators. The life events page could have been better if they were designed as a checklist of the things one should do to transition through the life event. (2000-07-30)CIO Magazine Web Business 50/50 Awards
CIO Magazine received over 540 entries for this year's 50/50 Awards. The winners include large well-known organization like Compaq, Ford and Cisco systems as well as specialty sites like PNV.com, a portal designed to improve the working lives of the country's 1 million long-haul drivers. (2000-07-01)Solve My Problem Now
According to this Web Pages that Suck article "Many sites contain ego-stroking mission statements and corporate bios that prove the company forgot the purpose of a Web site -- to solve my problems." The article describes how a law firm's web site meets this need to solve a problem. (2000-07-01)Creating Great Customer Experience
According to this webreview.com article "As recent Web failures have proven, all the fancy features in the world won't make up for a basically difficult shopping experience and lousy customer service." The article several examples of good web site design and some that aren't so good. (2000-07-01)Crabtree & Evelyn Retains Usability Crown
According to the ZD Net AnchorDesk review of Gardening Web site "Crabtree & Evelyn repeats its best-in-class accessibility, even improving on its effective use of small (read, fast-loading) graphic images and simple, easily scanned text. Navigation is intuitive and consistent throughout while user choices are obvious, albeit limited." (2000-07-01)Gartner Web Site-ings
Web Site-ings is a weekly Gartner feature highlighting best practices for great Web sites. You can also download a Excel Spreadsheet that articulates the components of a Web site, and even weighs these components to show how each contributes to total end user value. (2000-06-11)IBM Site Revamp Shows Design Priorities
According to this Internet Week article IBM "...used extensive customer research to find out what turns customers off and what makes them come back. The result: design changes that just about any dot-com could heed." (2000-06-04)Supportgate.com WebStar Award Winner
The WebStar awards recognize e-tailers who excel and ultimately provide outstanding service to their online customers. Symantec is this year's award recipient. (2000-06-04)WebBrain: a new Internet Search Engine
This is a site worth visiting, According to the promotional information "WebBrain lets you search the Web visually, so you can explore a dynamic picture of related information, instead of searching through longs lists of text." (2000-05-29)Forbes: Best of the Web
According to this Forbes magazine article "Our Best of the Web staff surfed some 5,000 Web sites—carefully and painstakingly—to identify the best. They're grouped into more than 90 categories, with one site in each designated as the "best of the best," our FORBES favorite." (2000-05-29)Social Security Retirement Planner
This site is a good example of using a questioning technique to guide people through the process of determining the status and amount of their Social Security benefits. (2000-05-29)eBay rises to top in usability
At eBay.com there’s no question of where to go upon arrival. eBay is Watchfire’s Quality Site Award Winner for the second time in six months. By offering quality features and instruction, eBay makes it a cinch for people to get started right away, even those who have never visited the site. (2000-05-29)PersonalMD.com: A Cyber Dossier for Your Medical Saga
According to this Business Week Online Web site review "PersonalMD has put a lot of time into making this process layman-friendly. One example: The site doesn't assume you know a lot about your medications -- or how to spell them -- before you start. A handy medical dictionary lists drug names, spellings, and some typical dosages to help you enter the information if you don't have the prescriptions right in front of you." (2000-05-29)Embark.com
This site features some interesting performance support features for finding a post graduate program that meets a person criteria. Try the MatchMaker link on the first page. The site also uses a task oriented design where one finds a program, applies and then looks for financing. (2000-04-16)Top 10 best examples of e-commerce
ZDNet and Creative Good have teamed up to bring you the best and the worst examples of e-commerce on the Web. In ranking a site, we use a specific methodology. The methodology alone should serve as a great set of guidelines for any e-commerce architect. (2000-04-09)Island.com
This Webby Award 2000 Nominee is an very good example of elegant simplicity in web site design. The site uses very few graphics and a limited color palette. The navigation and information are well organized and easy to scan. (2000-03-26)Furniture.com shows the privileges of registering
Furniture.com's registration page creates a good customer experience by clearly telling shoppers the benefits of registering. Shoppers are more likely to complete the form because the page explains what they'll receive by signing up. (2000-03-19)30 Things You Can Do On This Site
This interesting and rather unique supportgate.com page lists 30 things that a person can do on the site. Most of the listed activities contain links to the related pages. The page provides an alternate navigation to the site's content from the standard topic or subject based navigational hierarchy. (2000-03-19)Net Banking Nightmares
According to a 1999 study by Cybercitizen Finance, more than 3 million of us gave up online banking last year because we found it too confusing or got crummy customer service. In contrast, 2.1 million of us jumped on the online trading bandwagon during that same period. (2000-03-19)Learning to Let Go
HP's e-commerce site earns customers' loyalty by making it easy for them to shop – or not shop. HPshopping has won kudos, most importantly from consumers, who vote with their credit cards: 98 percent of its customers say they would buy again. (2000-03-05)General Chemistry Online
An example of a well designed website that is relatively simple to navigate and with consistent page designs. I particularly like the design of the Atoms & Ions companion notes page. (2000-02-06)CIO Case File: Furniture.com
"Furniture.com is based on the idea that it just shouldn't be that hard to find the perfect couch or a bedroom set. To that end, its Web site offers tools, live online assistance and thousands of pages of content to help customers find the perfect piece." (2000-01-30)Decision Maker
Decision Maker is a sample web application that uses JavaScript to evaluate the selections in six Likard scale question. Based on your selections, the Decision Maker shows which of our six Web start pages best fits your needs. (2000-01-22)Buying a car online
The author of this article reviewed several car buying Web site and found CarsDirect to be the most usable and satisfying site. According to the author "What I liked about CarsDirect is that you see the price before you provide any personal information -- such as your phone number or credit card. This is a very different process from say, Cars.com, where you first pick a dealer and then your information is transmitted to them before you can get a price quote" (2000-01-10)The Ten Best Web Support Sites for 1999
The recipients of the Association of Support Professionals 10 Best Web Support Sites competition. (1999-12-05)The best and worst of web-media design
This article by Jorn Barger has links to example of both good and bad web design. According to Barger "Good web design is about being considerate and being considerate is especially arduous, on the Web, because you can't be sure what all your different readers are seeing. Font sizes and shapes, color shades, window sizes and shapes, browser settings-- all of these and many more may be freely varied. So the basic 'golden rule' approach of creating something that looks good to you just doesn't cut it..." (1999-11-28)In the Midst Design - Examples
This site contains many examples of the user interface design work performed by In the Midst Design. The examples include web sites and applications. (1999-11-28)Bloomberg.com
Simple.com This web site is like a browser within a browser. It uses a combination of drop down list that can be used to find sites based on building a simple expression of interest. For example, to find poetry sites you could select "learn" from the first drop down and "about poetry in the second drop down list" The 3rd drop down list then shows a list of poetry sites. The site also contains icons for selecting general interest sites and information. (1999-11-07)
According to Gloria Gery the Bloomberg site "...design is very cool and huge amounts of content are packed together". To experience the site "...sign up for the market monitor. Populate it with some stocks and watch it's behavior and features. There is tremendous integration of data, news, visual representation. Look at the behavior "Rotate/Pause" which allows you to control how long you view a display. Of course, the integration of live TV is interesting too" (1999-11-15)HRTools.com
This performance centered site contains a variety of tools that a manager or Human Resource specialist can use to write job descriptions, prepare performance appraisal reports, plan an employee relocation, measure the a job candidates skills and aptitudes, etc. (1999-10-10)Dynamic FAQ's
This site contains an interesting example of a dynamic frequently asked questions (FAQ) database from Right Now Technologies. The FAQs are ranked based on how frequently they've been asked, and the answers are presented in an order that reflects how helpful they were to previous visitors (answers that solve the most queries bubble up to the top). Customers can also use key words to search the database of problems and solutions. A feedback form displayed below the FAQ text allows users to report whether the information delivered was what they needed; that feedback influences the ordering of the FAQs.Personalogic.com - A Decision Guide
This interesting website illustrates the design and use of decision support tools. The decision guides take a person through the process of identifying and specifying their needs and wants. It then presents a list of products that meet these criteria. (1999-08-15)Online Manuals & Product Simulations
The LiveManuals.com site is a place where you can learn about and use simulations of real electronic products. As of this posting, the site contained simulations for a wireless phone, microwave and digital watch. You must download a special plug-in to use the simulation. This site is a good example of supporting performance with the use of simulations. People may be much less reluctant to use a simulation of a product that the real product itself. (1999-08-07)Taking a Natural Approach
This Industry Standard article describes how MotherNature.com used focus groups to redesign their e-commerce website. The new design features four ways to shop : by product category, lifestyle, medical problem or brand. The site also has a database of product information and articles about natural remedies. (1999-07-12)Leaders of the Pack
This CIO.com article list the 50 best of the best websites According to CIO these web sites "...make it easy, pleasant, even downright enjoyable for customers to do business with them." (1999-07-13)Sales.com
Gloria Gery's Review of Amazon.com Gloria Gery provided this summary review of the Amazon.com e-commerce site. (Feb-13-99)
This site is designed to meet the needs of sales professionals. It provides a combination of sales tools, information about selling techniques and current information about competitors. The site is an example of a electronic performance support systems for sales professionals. (1999-07-03)Avitek JavaApplet Applications This site contains several examples of browser-based applications that use Java applets. Some of these applets demonstrate database connections. While these are not particularly good example of performance centered design, they illustrate the potential for browser-based application development. (Jul-28-97)
DISTED: A web-based performance support system for distance educators DISTED is designed to help prospective and practicing distance educators design deliver and evaluate interactive distance education (IDE) that utilizes Interactive Television (ITV) as the primary delivery system, and the Internet (e.g., World Wide Web, listserv) and print-based materials as supporting media. DISTED was the 2nd place finisher in the 1997 EPSS Design Contest. (Mar-20-99)
Fidelity Investment - IRA Evaluator
irt.org Home Page This page illustrates how you can use dynamic HTML to display a pop-up window when the mouse pointer moves over a link. If you have Netscape Navigator 4.0 or Internet Explorer 4.0, you can go directly to the site. The pop-ups appear on the what's new links near the bottom of the page. (Nov-07-98)
This page contains a very interesting and innovative example of field specific help in a web page. When you click on a field, the Inline Assistant part of the screen displays instructions for that field. These instructions are gif images. This technique lets you embedded help in a web page and most browsers will be able to display the field specific help topic. (Jan-01-99)Lawson Software Samples
This site contains samples of Lawson Software's browser based applications. Of particular interest is the Live Events system that allow employees to easily update their personnel records and benefit plans based on a variety of life events. The samples are just screen shots of actual systems. (Sep-02-98)Microsoft Money Insider Retirement Calculators
This page contains a screen shot of web-based retirement calculator on the Mocrosoft Money Insider web site. (Updated Oct-20-98)MSN Rent or Buy Calculator
This page contains a screen shot of Rent or Buy calculator on the MSN Home Advisor web site. It is a wizard style calculator. Each panel of the wizard is a dynamic HTML layer that changes when a user clicks Next button. The instructions for using each field in the calculator are also contained on layer that changes when the mouse passes over a field or a field is active. (Oct-31-98)Netscape's Page Creation Wizard
Quicken Retirement Planner This site contains an Internet version of the Quicken Retirement Planner. It's a good example of a performance centered design. (Apr-04-98)
With this online system a novice can build a basic HTML page from within their web browser. (Jul-26-98)