I have come to the conclusion that the larger the company the worse the website.
LOL. That is certainly true of USG, though GP’s is fairly usable I think.
…Dow, Sika, Carlisle, etc.
A big tip off is when you go to the company’s main website and are asked to select a language.
…or when you select your region on their website from a map of the world and all of the US and Canada are considered one region.
Sometimes you KNOW they offer a product but it is nowhere to be found. You might start feeling lucky when there’s an Architects page or Construction Industry, and it is still not there.
Agreed! I think the best websites are from companies where the product rep’s message back to marketing is listened to. In the larger companies, the distance between the product rep in the field and the people making website content decisions is too great.
I have said it before and will repeat myself, “Don’t let your marketing people do your website!!!”
I will also note that for large companies, the primary website (the one you get to under the primary domain name) is often conceived of as a portal for many different types of users including: shareholders, employees, sales people (real sales people, not reps), product representatives, the public, purchasers, and different market segments (like residential and commercial–see Armstrong). It gets even more complex if the company is a multinational. I am not sure what to do about this. The company wants a single web presence / identity / brand, but if not done with thought and care, it can be confusing (what shareholder wants to access a product data sheet for vapor-permeable, fluid-applied air barriers?).
Good comments all, although I will note that I have seen poor web sites for small and medium sized firms as well are large ones.
One of my personal gripes is the web site with what appears to be a link to their catalogue, but in reality only leads to an page to submit a request for a catalogue to be mailed to you. I am often looking for information that I need immediately, not later. I do not understand why all product information (drawings, specifications, material data, etc) cannot be available on-line (and in multiple formats: pdf, cad, text, etc).
I would suggest that you take the time to tell manufacturer’s about the problems with their websites and that you guide them to WebFormat (http://www.csrf.org/html/webform.html) for guidelines on how to improve their websites. WebFormat was created by Colin and later given to CSRF. Unfortunately it doesn’t receive as much promotion as it should
There have been several times where I have not specified a product because the information on the company’s website was so difficult to find. Then I have typically gone to the competitor’s website and specified the competitor’s product because the information was easier to find!
It’s all about being clear, concise, complete and correct!
Some time ago I needed a guide spec from a manufacture so I went to their web site. The site wasnt too difficult to navigate, and I saw they had many of their details available for download, but No Specs. Instead there was a form that I should fill out and send and then theyd send me some specs. I took that opportunity to post a message on their site explaining that I was going to use one of their competitors products since that company shared their information, including specs, directly from their web site.
I received an phone call from the company a couple of days later and the gentleman explained that he maintains the specifications personally and keeps them on his computer for updating. He told me that, if Ill send him an e-mail or phone call, hell send the specs to me right away. As pleasantly as I could, I told him why that doesnt work because I might need that information at 11:00 pm some night and Ill just bet he wont be at his desk when I call or e-mail. He seemed to understand my problem but never quite got that it is really His problem.
I have consulted with some manufacturers and their team of marketing people/web people and shown them exactly what my experience of their web site consists of. I’ll take a typical specification problem – its Sunday afternoon about 2 pm Pacific time – and I have three more sections to finish, using their products. Starting with the spec section master, I’ll walk through their web site and look for the information I need to finish the spec section… and they can see exactly what I’m trying to do, and how that compares to what they think I need.
this exercise typically ends up with a pretty good response. As we all know – the web site people, and the product people never really know what we do with the information they have, or how we use it – and we’re typically the sophisticated information users. the good companies can extrapolate from my experience to the less-sophisticated users.
I’m still amazed by the manufacturers who won’t post their technical information so their competition won’t know what they’re doing. The really goofy ones are those who won’t even tell you what their products are. I just want to know what to specify; I’m not going to manufacture a knock-off.
At least one coatings manufacturer won’t post their test results but wants us to limit allowable bidders to those who meet their performance abilities. I wonder if we need to issue a special handshake or decoder ring to bidders so they can be allowed to see the spec content. Don’t these people realize that their competition already know more about their products than we do?
I am with ken on this. To manufacturers who tell me that they will take responsbility, I say “Whose stamp is on the Drawings?” One aspect of this attitude that is unfortunate is that many architects, especially the younger ones, assume that the manufacturer’s product liability relieves them of professional liability. Nooooo… the architect is still professionally liable for making an intelligent selection. Now if the architect has done adequate due diligence; or the Owner says “I don’t care what your experience is; I want to use this stuff.”
In order to make an intelligent product selection (and write a good specification), I need to know something about your st. If you won’t give some general clue, then how do I know that it is compatible with the st the designer wants to put right next to it? Especially for exterior products, I want to know what the resin technology of the material is (silicone? alkyd? polyester? acrylic? fluropolymer?) so I have a general idea about the performance of the product.
I don’t really care if the you are crosslinking the third molecule from the left with the second one from the right.
Well, and the silly thing is, don’t they know that someone else (if they are smart enough) can back-engineer their work anyway? Its like the spec consultants I know who only provide PDFs, because someone “might copy their documents”. Believe me – once your product (spec book, window wall) leaves the warehouse, its public knowledge. If you have very complicated chemistry, back-engineering might take longer, but its still possible.
And, as all specifiers know, the “product” is only half of it. In many dicussions on this forum we’ve heard consistently “if you can’t install and support your product, I don’t care how good the product itself is”. The people-side is equally important as the product side – and that’s the part that can’t be back-engineered.
I totally agree with pretty much everything that has been said here. Many manufacturer’s websites are impossible to navigate.
We need to be able to get in, get the info we need - guide specs, product data/cuts, etc. without have to register and remember a miriad of usernames and passwords. the website that has that generally dosen’t get their product specified by me.
P.S. I have software on my office computer that converts PDF’s to text documents that can then be modified.
Heck, most often you can simply copy/paste from an unprotected PDF without separate software.
And my password for the vast majority of manufacturer’s websites is just that…I really don’t care if someone else can “log in to my account”. What the heck can they do then? I save really secure passwords for the important stuff.
Actually I’ve been logging as Lynn for years (just kidding).
Maybe we should just create a universal sign-in that we can all share. How about:
Username: Username
Password: Password
Name: Me I Myself
Address: 1601 Pennsylvania Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20100
Phone: 800-555-1212
Feel free to use it. Let me know if it works!
That’s a great idea…and I like the address, too. Maybe, just maybe, if enough people did this, they’d get the message.
Ken,
Yes, it works . . . on most sites.
See, it even works on this web site.
[except the message was put into the same queue as one with no names - Merry Christmas, Colin]