No scuffed shoes – Get what you know right

When you're selling something, or promoting yourself somehow, I think it's pretty obvious that you should take special care to make sure that you present well.

For instance, if your company sells doors then it's a no-brainer that the door to your showroom should be of the best quality, well-fitted, and so on. If you sell shoes, your staff shouldn't be wearing old, scuffed brogues (unless that's the type you sell).

I received an e-mail from Userfocus the other day though, inviting me to a seminar on web usability. The seminar sounds great, and I receive the e-mails because I've signed up for them on Userfocus's well put-together and informative website.

I sounded so good that I clicked the link in the e-mail, for Brochure and more information (link working exactly as in the e-mail). So then I tried the other link, for Booking form. For the record, both of these links fail to work (due to a '>' being appended to the link in the e-mail, I think), and instead go to Userfocus's default error page.

For me, this is the usability equivalent of scuffed shoes.

This whole episode seemed particularly relevant to me as I had just read David Hawdale's post on companies spending money on Google advertising, getting people to their site, then not being able to deliver what their advert suggested. This is poor user (and in this case, customer) experience.

It also reminded me of a technical communications manager I talked to, who recounted his amazement at how few of the CVs (resumes) he received used proper styles, and were instead a hodge-podge of in-line Word formatting. In this case, your CV says enough about you before a word is even read.

Whatever you get wrong when you're selling your product or yourself, don't make a mess of your own profession. I'll accept spelling mistakes from a butcher, and a web editor who can't joint a chicken, but not the other way round.

David Hawdale's post on real availability not matching the advertising
A working link (as of today) to Userfocus's web usability seminar