We present the second edition of the study on the functionality of logistics companies’ websites. The first such study of companies in this industry was conducted last year, and its results were published in issue 3/2006 of “Logistyka”. This year, the analysis is repeated in an unchanged form to check whether companies have introduced changes to their websites, removing the errors identified in 2006.
The study was traditionally divided into four parts. The first checked the available options for contacting the company: landline phone, contact via e-mail, and using a contact form placed on the website. In this part, practically no major changes were noted compared to last year. Unfortunately, several companies have decided against including a contact form on their websites, which significantly hinders contact with the company for people who do not have access to an e-mail program while using a given company’s website.
The main part of the study traditionally concerned the functionality of websites. In this part, practically no changes were noted compared to the previous year. It is worth noting here only the changes on the PKP CARGO SA website, which, thanks to the website’s reconstruction, no longer occupies the infamous last place, as it did in 2006. This year, the companies No Limit and Rat-Pol performed the worst in this part of the study, obtaining only 9 points out of 20 possible. A very bad example is also the DSV company website, which prevents users of the Opera browser from using it.
Companies still ignore the needs of people with poor eyesight, preventing them from adjusting font sizes to their own preferences. Often, very extensive websites also lack the convenience of highlighting already visited hyperlinks in a different color and those that have not yet been visited in another. None of the companies participating in the study used different colors for hyperlinks. Only 8 companies make it easier for their customers to find the site by allowing the use of the site both after typing its address with the “www” subdomain and without it. Only 5 companies have their own useful error pages, which in some way help lost users when they type an incorrect website address in the browser. In the case of other errors, the proportions are more balanced. Some companies pay attention to following certain rules (listed in individual columns of the table – ed. note), ignoring others, while another part of the companies does exactly the opposite and ignores the rules that are important to other companies. Such intermediate solutions do not provide customers with proper comfort in using company websites.
The article comes from the magazine “Logistyka” 3/2007.