Date: February 1, 2010

Authors: Travis Metcalf & Brock Horne

Roadside Assistance Membership Web Site Competitive AnalysisIMD 200 - Assignment #2

Executive Summary

✤ We evaluated our site along with two of our competitor’s web sites in an effort to identify gaps and opportunities for improvement to our existing web site.

✤ We discovered that our site needs to be redesigned to address some technical, performance, organizational, SEO and accessibility concerns identified during our analysis.

Summary of Scoring ResultsSummary of Scoring Results

Web SiteWeb Site ScoreScore

Automobile club of America 2.75

National Auto Club 2

Auto Assistance Anytime 1.25

Introduction

✤ Scope

✦ Conduct a competitive analysis of roadside assistance membership service web sites.

✤ Purpose

✦ Evaluate the strengths & weaknesses of major competitor’s web sites.

✦ Identify areas of opportunity for enhancement to our clients existing web site.

✤ Web Sites Evaluated

✦ Auto Assistance Anytime (our site)

✦ Automobile Club of America

✦ National Auto Club

Analysis Approach - Criteria

✤ Each Web Site in our Competitive Set was evaluated based on the following criteria:

✦ Home Page

✦ Navigation / Organization

✦ Purchasing Process (aka: shopping cart)

✦ Usability

✦ Performance

Analysis Approach - Scoring

✤ Each web site was assigned a value ranging from 1-3 for each of the evaluation criteria.

✦ Good = 3

✦ Average = 2

✦ Poor = 1

✤ Overall score is calculated by summing up the total and dividing by the number of evaluation criterion.

Home Page

✤ Score: Good = 3.

http://www.aaa.com/Automobile Club of America

Information and layout are clear and clean.The Home page utilizes maximum amount of space for displaying information.

Segments with in the site layout are busy. Requires user to search for information.Note: the “join” button was difficult to locate

The home page holds a mass amount of information. With the amount of information beginning displayed it difficult to locate the site focal point.

Analysis:

Home Page

✦ Score: Average = 2

http://www.nationalautoclub.com/National Auto Club

Logo is in the left upper corner.The main navigation holds 6 tabs.Header/feature window is text heavy.Services are featured in three cell windows.Homepage is text heavy and lacks hierarchy.

logo

header/feature window

services

footer

main navigation

Analysis:

Home Page

Analysis:

Poor layout and design. The Home page lacks any appeal or representation of a brand or feel. Text is within non indexable images, thus adding to poor SEO.Content organization is confusing and not well thought out.The images are clearly stock photography that aren’t used to create an original design.

✦ Score: Poor = 1

Auto Assistance Anytimehttp://www.autoassistanceanytime.com/

text on non indexable images

Navigation / Organization✤ Score: Good =

3.

http://www.aaa.com/Automobile Club of America

The navigation has 7 tabs. The Information Architecture developed for this site navigation is well thought out and clear. Labels are meaningful and clear. The navigation bar gets lost in the header as a result of the amount of information being display with in that given space.Note: Users ultimately use the home page to assist in navigating to a page deeper within the site, thus creating a strong demand for a more prominent navigation.

Analysis:

Navigation / Organization

✦ Score: Poor = 1

National Auto Clubhttp://www.nationalautoclub.com/

The main navigation has 6 tabs.The home button is on the far right of the navigation.Employment and Sitemap are main navigation options.

sitemapemployment home

Analysis:

Navigation / Organization

Analysis:

The navigation consist of 6 buttons.The navigation is clear and prominent. Navigation links have “blink” as rollover state.Note: consider a color change in back ground of link as opposed to the word blinking

Auto Assistance Anytimehttp://www.autoassistanceanytime.com/

✦ Score: Average = 2

main navigation

Usability / Purchase Processhttp://www.aaa.com/Automobile Club of America

✤ Score: Good = 3.

The purchase process is 7 steps long and requires the user to answer a series of marketing questions before being able to shop or purchase. The Website has good error handling.Note: A shorter process should be considered.

Analysis:

Usability / Purchase ProcessNational Auto Clubhttp://www.nationalautoclub.com/

✤ Score: Good = 3.

Home Page Call Out Window

Membership page

Online Application pageThe purchasing process is simple and straight forward.The purchasing process involves 3-4 steps.The process is informative and provides a feeling of security.

Analysis:

Usability / Purchase Process

Analysis:The purchasing process is simple and direction. However the process lack direction and information on the product being purchased prior to shopping.The application page lacks direction and a send button which can present security issues and result in the user not purchasing the product. Overall while the process is not complex, it does offer some issues in the form of security and flow.

Auto Assistance Anytimehttp://www.autoassistanceanytime.com/

✦ Score: Poor = 1

home page call out window

application page

method of payment

Technology / Performancehttp://www.aaa.com/Automobile Club of America

✤ Score: Good = 3.

Analysis:The features and functionality of the web site works as expected and the site operates at sufficient speed.The web site’s html and/ or css contains numerous error(213). The css errors are a result of using CSS3 (rounded corners for the Safari and Firefox browsers)The html and css contain multiple errors and do not validate.

Technology / PerformanceNational Auto Clubhttp://www.nationalautoclub.com/

✦ Score: Average = 2

Site links and features work properly. The main navigation lacks any status indicator on the home page specifically.The html and css contain multiple errors(32) and do not validate.The site functions at sufficient speed.

home page

employment page

status indicatorAnalysis:

Technology / PerformanceAuto Assistance Anytimehttp://www.autoassistanceanytime.com/

✦ Score: Poor = 1

Analysis:

All of the text on the home page of the site is within images so it isn’t SEO indexable.Since the content of the site is contained within images the site is going to load slower on dial up or none broadband connections.Screen readers wouldn’t be able to read the content of the site since it is within images.

Conclusion

✤ Automobile Club of America scored the highest with a score of 2.75. In our analysis we concluded that this site had minor issues and overall contained many attributes that were successful.

✤ Auto Assistance Anytime (our site) scored the lowest 1.25. In our analysis we concluded that this site contained many errors as well as an overall lack of design and originality.

Results Grid

Web Siteautoassistanceanytime.c

omaaa.com

nationalautoclub.com

Home Page 1 3 2

Nav / Org 2 3 1

Usability/Purchase process

1 2 3

Technology/Performance

1 3 2

Totals 5 11 8

Overall Score 1.25 2.75 2

ScoringScoring

Good 3

Average 2

Poor 1

Client Recommendations

✤ We definitely recommend a web site redesign using a professional web design company that adheres to web standards and best practices.

✤ Create a visual design that appeals to your target audience

✤ Branding logo redesign. The current logo is unprofessional and limits the ability to use it in a site redesign.

✤ Better content organization (IA)

✤ Redesign Site’s top-level navigation to better reflect user goals