A recent attempt to unsubscribe from a specific newsletter got me thinking about Web design and the Parkerian Hexad’s inclusion of utility as a fundamental attribute of information security.
An organization’s Web site has become one of its prime methods for communicating with potential customers, users and business partners’ users through e-commerce in the decade from 2000 to 2009. Organizations use a variety of strategies for exploiting their Web sites including trustworthiness indicators. Customers and other users focus on several aspects of Web design when forming attitudes about the Web site and its sponsor. Song & Zahedi’s conceptual model classifies the factors influencing user attitudes as follows:
• Promotion: information about products and services…
• Service: guarantees, order tracking, privacy…
• Information influence: customer ratings, testimonials, comments, chat…
• Self-efficacy: personalization (easy logon, easy reading), ease of use (concise information, uniform page design), effectiveness (graphics, audio)…
• Resource facilitation: enhancing product knowledge (FAQs, product info, links, search), customization (components, made-to-order), payment and receiving options
With these factors in mind, you can read an edited version of the e-mail I sent to the director of public relations for the company.
* * *
Hello,
I’m the writer for Network World’s Security Strategies newsletter and I want to continue receiving appropriate media items from your firm.
When I received e-mail below about —–, I tried the “unsubscribe” link in the message; it went to a generic unsubscribe that would have removed my address from all of your news, not from —– news only. You may lose subscribers who would have been happy to receive other publications if you allow this error to persist.
Went to your Privacy page at — found no unsubscribe information or link.
Searched for “unsubscribe” using your Search function.
On results page found 404s:
“—– Direct”
Second link “—– Direct”
Third link, “—– – About —– Inc.” had a link on it that did send me to the right form,
Now curious about the extent of the errors, I tested the other links:
Fourth link, “—– Training and Education Services” pointed to where I went to the “—– Privacy Policy” which has no links for unsubscribing.
The fifth link, “—– -Communication Preferences” also went to the —– Privacy Policy (where, as mentioned, there seems to be no link for unsubscribing).
Finally, there is no link for Webmaster at the bottom of every page; in your Contact page, Web issues are buried in the section called E-mail in the description, “General ‘non-technical’ questions, concerns, or Web-site feedback.”
In summary,
• Someone needs to verify that links found in a search actually provide the functions advertised.Xenu Link Sleuth that do the same and produce useful reports.
• Unsubscribe forms should allow complete control by the subscriber over exactly which communications to to reject and which to retain.
• I recommend you use a site-wide test for broken links. Professional Web-design software includes such tests and there are free utilities such as
• Make it easy for viewers to tell your Web team about errors: include an e-mail link or a link to an HTML contact form at the bottom of every page or prominently in the Contacts page.
If I were grading your design team in one of my courses, I would issue an A- grade for these minor errors.
