I took a quick look around at the major cities that I could think of that had public transportation systems, and I was quite surprised by the results. Some of the websites were quite nice and featured great web 2.0 designs, an emphasis on usability, nice graphics and colors, etc. Others were quite disappointing, and it was obvious that they are still languishing in the web 1.0 days.

I’ll let you judge for yourself though. Here are my top 10 public transportation websites – 5 of the best, and 5 of the worst.

The 5 best websites

1. Chicago

2. Boston

3. Washington, DC

4. San Francisco

5. Los Angeles

The 5 worst websites

1. New York City

2. Philadelphia

3. Portland (Oregon)

4. Seattle

5. Dallas

Thoughts?

Now that you’ve seen the websites, what are your thoughts? What do you think makes the 5 best ones so great, or the 5 worst ones so bad? Share your thoughts with everyone by leaving a comment below!

In the year or so that I’ve been in business for myself, I’ve continually looked to improve both my design abilities and how I communicate to potential clients the ways that my knowledge can benefit them. I’ve been making great progress on both fronts, but I’d really like to thank you especially, because it wasn’t until I saw your work that I became totally confident in my abilities in both areas.

A few months ago I approached the dental practice I go to with some thoughts I had about improving their website through a redesign. Their website at the time was in pretty rough shape and badly in need of improvement. The main dentist there told me that they had just contracted with you for the project, since you specialize in websites for dental practices. I wished him the best of luck on the project, and said that I looked forward to seeing their new website when it was ready.

I was thinking about that conversation this weekend. Since it had taken place 3-4 months ago, I figured that the new website would be launched by now. I did a quick Google search and confirmed that I was right – it had indeed been launched.

See, I specialize in creating custom websites for my clients that not only look great, but are also highly functional from both a usability and an SEO perspective. I like to talk to my clients and get a sense of who they are and what they need before I build them a website. I don’t think those are high standards to meet, and I thought that most other web designers shared a commitment to those ideas as well. But as I learned from seeing your work, that’s not always the case.

For a small business like this dental practice, the website that you gave them doesn’t truly meet their needs. I really believe that a redesign should be a big improvement over what it is replacing, but in this instance, I would even go so far as to say that it is a step backwards from their previous website.

Some of the things you did really stuck with me – in particular:

• Not taking advantage of their former #1 Google ranking for “dentist Chicago” - I’m sure you already know how difficult it is to optimize a website for generic keywords and have good results with them. Their previous website already already did that for them, even if those benefits weren’t intentional or they didn’t know how or why that was happening. Now, when you do a search for those terms, their practice isn’t anywhere near the first results page anymore.
• Not using their existing URL – For some reason the new website was created at a separate URL than the old one – www.their-website-url.com instead of www.theirwebsiteurl.com. But both URLs are still appearing in Google search results, so it will make people wonder which website is accurate. If I were some random person searching for a dentist and had to think about the difference between the two, you can bet I would just keep searching rather than stick around to find out the answer.
• Not creating a custom design - It’s very obvious after a few clicks through the website that the design is based on a template. That’s fine I suppose, although it’s not something I would personally choose to do for a client. On top of that, there are a lot of basic things that just look sloppy – such as the alignment on your list items, for example. Sloppiness can give people the impression that the business is unprofessional – which is probably not what they want to convey.
• Not understanding the role that colors have on a website - This particular dental practice markets itself as a dental spa. What that means, I’m still not quite sure, even though I’ve been going there for almost 4 years; I just know they offer a free shoulder massage after I get my teeth cleaned. But in any case, for a business that markets itself as such, I would have chosen colors that were much more reflective of what they are all about – perhaps colors that convey a sense of relaxation and ease, such as light blues and greens. I’m afraid that the dark purple and grey combination that you gave them just doesn’t give off that vibe.
• Not styling your links so it’s obvious what is a link and what isn’t - Website users associate blue words as links, so the way you styled words for emphasis in the headers and content gives the impression that those words are links, even if they aren’t. If you would have chosen another color for emphasis and used blue for your links instead of the dark red you used instead, it would have gone a long way towards making the text links as usable as possible.
• Not making it easy to find their address - You put “Northside of Chicago” in the top right area of the header, which is valuable real estate on a website. As a visitor, it’s good to have of where the practice is located in the city – but since the north side is somewhat/sort of a big area, it would have been more useful if you told me their address in that spot instead. Instead, you put the address in a place that’s more difficult to find and where I have to scroll down to find it.
• Not making the home page useful – Their business offers some unique services, so it would be useful to visitors to tell them on the home page what exactly they offer that differentiates theirs from a regular dental office. You could have put links to those services that they get the most business from, for example. Filling one-third of the home page with a lifestyle graphic strikes me as unnecessary, especially if you could could convey those emotions through a better design and color scheme, as I mentioned above.
• Not making it easy to find what it is they do - The procedures and services offered at their practice is why they’re in the business in the first place, so you want people to know about these things in as many ways as possible on the website. Making a list out of the almost 40 different things that are offered and only making it available from within the sidebar of their procedures section just doesn’t cut it. Neither does not alphabetizing or sorting the list in any way either. Next time, perhaps organize those links by categories or some other way to make it much more user-friendly.

Still with me? Good, because I’d like to thank you for everything that you did, however poorly it was done.

Why would I want to thank you for all of these things that I would do differently? It’s quite simple actually. As a web designer who is still perfecting my craft, it’s often helpful to get a sense of what not to do on a website so that I know what to do when I design my own. And by looking at your work, you just gave me the perfect example of what not to design when designing a website for a client.

Call me an idealist, but I believe that when we, as web designers, work with clients, we have a responsibility to deliver more than just the product that they are paying us for. We have a responsibility to really work with them so that they understand two main things – how:

1. Having a great website can really help their business
2. The unique knowledge that we have is necessary to achieve those benefits

That is the value proposition for why clients hire you. I know it’s mine, and it’s also why I am so committed to good design, usability, and SEO. All three are vital to a successful website, and a successful website can be vital to their long-term success. It’s up to us to incorporate these three concepts and to do a good job at doing so. I don’t know about you, but if I ever delivered a website to a client like the one that you delivered, I would not be able to call myself a professional any longer.

For my own success, I truly believe that being able to communicate these two points to our clients – and doing so in terms that they understand – is what really convinces people to hire me and what will ultimately make me successful as a web designer.

I hope that you feel the same way, and that you take these comments constructively as a way to improve the product that you deliver on future projects.

Sincerely,

Addicott Web

P.S. Next time I’m at the dentist, I’m going to follow up with them about their new website, and am planning to present some of my suggestions to truly improve their website. I hope I can show them that they don’t necessarily need to hire a firm specializing in a particular niche market in order to have a great website. They just need someone who is committed to creating a website that reflects their purpose and is fashioned with good design, usability, and SEO in mind. That is what will really benefit their business in the long run.

A quick aside: managing updates like this is something I used to do when I worked for USY in New York, so my expectations might be on the high side. When I did these updates from 2002-2004, given the resources and technology of the time, posting written updates and photos on our website was all we could do. (See this sample.) These days, there are many more tools that to make these type of updates more user-friendly.

We’ve had two updates so far. The first came the day after the group left (the next morning here but the next evening in Israel, with the time difference) and let us know that the group had landed safely and was doing well. The second came two days later (three full days in Israel), and while it didn’t mention anything about what the group was doing, it did direct us to photo galleries on their website.

Let me pause here. If I were writing the updates, how I would write them differently?

• Have more frequent updates. I was expecting daily updates, so to not get that is surprising. I’ve been to Israel several times and know exactly where the group is, so I’m not looking for updates because of safety concerns. I think daily updates would just be something family members back home would want to see.
• Have more detailed updates. Here’s my thinking: if someone is on the trip in the first place, there is a decent likelihood that their parents and other family members haven’t been to Israel either. Both groups are the same in terms of not necessarily knowing about the significance of the places that will be seen – the difference being that participants will see those places in person, while those back home won’t. So just as important as exposing participants to Israel should be exposing family members back home as well. I think a good way to do so would be by providing some brief background information on where the group is and what they are seeing. Some people who have been to Israel (like myself and my sister) might skip over the information, since we are already familiar with a lot of it, but I think in general, it would be more useful than not. And this information doesn’t have to be anything written on the fly either – whoever is writing the updates could prepare it ahead of time and save it for when that day came.
• Post the written updates on the website as well. Don’t just send them out over e-mail, which can be lost easily. It also helps to be able cross-reference what we are seeing in the pictures with where the group is. Plus, once participants return from the trip, they might want to see what their families were seeing as well.

When I looked at the photo galleries that I was directed to, they were a bit disorganized for my taste and somewhat difficult to use. I noticed four things that I would improve on:

• Organize the photos. It would have been a lot more helpful if the photos were categorized by day, rather than as long pages with no way to distinguish between when and where the photos were taken. When I did the updates for USY, we organized the updates from each trip by week rather than by day – see this sample. But those trips also ran for 6 1/2 weeks; birthright’s trips only run for 10 days.
• Have the pop-up windows sized correctly. When I clicked on a thumbnail of a photo, it appeared in a pop-up window that wasn’t sized properly. So in order to see the full photo, I had to take the extra step of expanding the window, either by maximizing it using the scrollbar. Some simple coding would have fixed this and made browsing a bit quicker.
• Make it easy to browse through the full-size photos. Giving the ability to browse through the full-sized photos using “Previous” and “Next” buttons in the pop-up window is an easy and simple way to do this. Something in a slide show format like the Kodak or Google’s Picasa photo galleries would be even nicer, although the time and budget required for something like that make it more difficult to implement.
• Keep you at your spot on the page. When I clicked on a thumbnail to view the full-sized version, the main page behind the pop-up window went back to the very top of the page. So to find where I left off, I had to scroll through the photos again. Not the most user-friendly feature, particularly in combination with super-long pages of photos.

Despite my issues with their website, none of these concerns impact the experience of those on the trip. My brother seems to be having a great time, and word is he’s even tried falafel, which before the trip would have been unheard of. And ironically enough, until our mother told him that everyone in our family was excited to see him in pictures, he didn’t even know that there were photos being posted.

The moral of the story is that like all websites, these smaller points, when taken altogether, do have the potential to influence others’ perceptions of an organization. As a reflection of who they are, sometimes it is the attention to detail that can make people think that much more highly of them.

We thought we had found a humane society to go to, so we tried getting in touch with them to get a few initial questions answered. The phone number (which is prominently displayed on their website) went unanswered, and despite numerous attempts to reach them, we were never able to get through to someone.

So instead we decided to take a drive to the address we found listed – not on their website, but on the search results page. We piled into the car, eager to see some dogs and excited about seeing the look on our mother’s face when we brought a dog in the door.

Unfortunately, once we arrived at that address, it turned out to be not the animal shelter that we were looking for, but someone’s home.

Now, you would think that an animal shelter – whose sole purpose is to place animals in good homes – would make it easy to actually find them. But by not having accurate contact information on their website, the way they communicated was at odds with their mission.

So what are the lessons here that can be applied to creating good websites?

• Search results can only be as good as the information on your website
• An up-to-date website is essential to your communications strategy
• Contact information should always be available and, more importantly, accurate
• If you depend on people finding you, then make it as easy as possible for them to do so