Help me find good corporate websites.

July 3, 2008 8:26 AM

Corporate website question. Help me find some good ones.

So we're looking at doing a complete nuke and pave on our website, and rebuilding from the ground up. What I am looking for is threefold:

1) Examples of really great corporate websites:
a) intuitive and simple navigation
b) clean design (we have a basic design concept in mind, but we want to also see what's out there and what's effective)
c) Fairly flat site, few pages, not an inordinate amount of corporate detail (e.g., Microsoft.com would be bad)

2) Thoughts on usability: what's good (e.g. easy email forms that don't launch a browser?), what's bad (e.g. flash?)

3) All bearing in mind that the majority of people visiting our website will not be hugely tech/net savvy. Some will, but not most.

posted by dirtynumbangelboy to computers & internet (14 comments total)

It would help if you told us the specific industry or target market, but I’ll just throw Panic out there as an example of what I think is a great site design, particularly the subsite for Coda.
posted by breaks the guidelines? at 8:41 AM on July 3

Sorry, the specific industry is marketing execution. Target market is, well, anyone who wants info from our company, so it'll be: potential (or current) clients, potential investors, potential employees.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 8:44 AM on July 3

Panic is great, and is already on my shortlist.

Y'know, it's depressingly easy to find bad website design.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 8:48 AM on July 3

Smashing Magazine is an excellent general resource for designers; they have articles on usability, discussions of what works and what doesn't, and often showcase examples of great design.
posted by le morte de bea arthur at 8:58 AM on July 3

One thing about the Panic site is that you have to mouseover the software icons to see what they are. It looks nice, but this means it's mystery meat to new visitors, which means that you are going to lose a portion of them.

Believe it or not, this MBUSA site is, in my book, an excellent corporate site. It ain't high art, but it lets the visitor know that he or she is in the right place, it presents all the things that visitors might want to do on the index page, there are clear site goals (sign up for info, right there on the home page), and the "featured content" or big offer, in this case, is splashed all over - unmissable. I really like the fact that the index page works hard to create a connection with MB via the email sign-up and also the dealer locator. Everything here does what you think it should do, and that is a hallmark of good, intuitive design.

Browse thefwa.com too, but this skews heavily toward flash-intensive sites.
posted by Mister_A at 9:03 AM on July 3

the Webby site should be a good resource - best of's in every category.
posted by doorsfan at 9:06 AM on July 3

I have to agree with Mister_A, mystery meat navigation is bad web design, no matter how pretty it looks.
posted by missmagenta at 9:11 AM on July 3

That's not to say that I don't like the Panic site–it does a great job of saying "I am a Mac site with Mac stuff for Mac people," which is really important. I would like it to work a little harder to tell you what that stuff is, that's all.
posted by Mister_A at 9:17 AM on July 3 [1 favorite]

Corporate websitestructures are almost all the same: About us, Products, Services, Contact us, etc.

Couple usability things:
1. Flash is hardly ever worth it - though it can give a homepage some pizzazz.
2. Break up your site areas into 5-7 categories to easily memorable/scannable.
3. A shallow navigation / site structure with more categories is more navigable than a deep structure with less.
4. Your site subsections communicate what your business is about. They're like proof points.
5. Keep it incredibly simple graphic touches. A corporate website should show off the content, not it's design, unless you are an ad agency or an app, in which case the site design showcases your skills.
6. For me - primary sections on top, secondary in a left nav, and tertiary open in left nav is easiest and most recognizable.
7. I recommend you build a prototype - even just draw two or three levels of the site on paper before doing any design.
posted by xammerboy at 11:48 AM on July 3

I think xammerboy has it about right, but I'd like to make the following observations:

1. Flash is hardly ever worth it - though it can give a homepage some pizzazz.

Flash as a decorative front-page effect is very dated. Use Flash if you have a very specific requirement - embedded video, animated illustrations, slideshows, 3D product views; don't use it for decoration.

2. Break up your site areas into 5-7 categories to easily memorable/scannable.
3. A shallow navigation / site structure with more categories is more navigable than a deep structure with less.

These are somewhat contradictory. Having fewer categories implies a deeper navigation for any given set of pages. I'd say just look at other well-designed sites in your sector and see how they do it.


4. Your site subsections communicate what your business is about. They're like proof points.

Not always. Many sites have very generic subsections (Home, About, Contact, Products) and still manage to convey a clear message. The chances are your site will primarily be seen by people who either already know what you do, or have searched for a company that does what you do.

But do choose a design and copy which clearly (from the homepage in) shows what you're about.

5. Keep it incredibly simple graphic touches. A corporate website should show off the content, not it's design, unless you are an ad agency or an app, in which case the site design showcases your skills.

No well-designed website has 'graphic touches'. The design of a corporate site should be a seamless integration of content and style. Yes, content is king, but presentation is queen. Many corporate sites are visually stunning; again, look at the sites of your competitors; then commission a design that outclasses them in terms of conveying an air of professionalism.

6. For me - primary sections on top, secondary in a left nav, and tertiary open in left nav is easiest and most recognizable.

Too prescriptive. Don't just pick a navigation style. Plan your site first, find a hierarchy that works, and find the most usable style of navigation. You may only need a single row of links. You might (god forbid) need a three-level navigation.

7. I recommend you build a prototype - even just draw two or three levels of the site on paper before doing any design.

Good advice. But be thorough. Plan every single section and page as if it were the homepage.
posted by le morte de bea arthur at 1:51 PM on July 3 [1 favorite]

http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/

Make the print large, your branding larger and keep the text short and relevant. Don't blather about synergy, or being enterprisey.
posted by zackola at 2:31 PM on July 3

http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/
ho ho ho.

dnab: I'd suggest going thru the many CSS gallery sites; they usually have a "corporate"/"clean design" section. Examples:

CSS Elite, CSS heaven, CSSMania topics
posted by slater at 11:50 PM on July 3

OK fine slater, here's a real example: http://engineyard.com/
posted by zackola at 8:51 AM on July 4

Semantic HTML (valid HTML when it launches), print CSS, RSS, no goddamned Flash, one or more blogs that really are updated regularly, contact details linked from homepage, site-wide search (hack Google or A9 if you have to), adjunct accounts on other sites (Flickr, Twitter, “the Facebook”), and, possibly above all else, really, really good typography and graphic design. Do not underestimate the importance of the last point.

If you want a local practitioner who won’t fuck it up, talk to Wishingline. I know tons of people out of town who also won’t. I don’t plug very often, so take it seriously.
posted by joeclark at 11:35 AM on July 5