Adland's tangled web

designers' making just to find out what they are about. These sites
expect visitors to mouse hopefully around looking for navigation links;
to sit through pointless animations; to endure tinkly music and wacky
sounds; to be charmed by caricatures of the entire staff; and to wade
through screeds of self-regarding guff. But that's not how the web
works. Visitors want information, and they want it within seconds, or
they'll go somewhere else.

Most of these sites are built using Macromedia Flash, which agencies
love because it lets designers create pixel-perfect layouts, as if they
were creating a banner ad or a poster. But designers can never resist
giving every site its own quirky system of navigation. Not only is this
reinventing a perfectly good wheel, it means visitors have to struggle
to make the site work. And simple things - contact details, examples of
the work, vacancies, a taste of the agency's philosophy - can end up
being buried deep.

Flash also stops browsers working properly; touch the "back" button in a
lot of these sites and you go right back to the homepage, or worse, out
of the site altogether. Flash prevents type being searched, enlarged or
read out in a screen reader for the visually impaired. And it renders
the site invisible to some potential visitors; you can't even see most
of these sites on an iPhone, for instance. Worse, gratuitous Flash makes
sites invisible to Google. A careful Google search ought to take you
straight to a relevant agency site, but in most cases, it won't. For
instance, who produced those clever Radio 1 web banners? Which agency
has just launched in South Africa? What work has Abbott Mead Vickers
BBDO done for the NHS? You - or potential clients - will search Google
in vain.

Of the sites here, only Dare, Rapier and Ogilvy are properly open to
search engines. And none of the sites has its own search facility, which
is criminal if you believe the web is about helping people find things
out rather than giving them what you think they ought to want.

Three marks are given, for appearance, usability and content, but really
they are indivisible. A site that looks clever but is tricky to use and
contains no content that sells your services is a waste of your money -
and everybody's time.

- aislondon.com

Archibald Ingall Stretton's visual metaphor is a kind of mind map, but
there's not much evidence of thought in the way the site is put
together. The homepage says nothing about who AIS is, and makes the
fatal assumption that the visitor can be bothered to work out what its
doodled navigation links mean. Who would guess that "One thing that's on
our mind" would lead to the company blog? Or that "OK, so what's it all
about then?" would lead to six cliche-ridden pages on the agency's
unremarkable philosophy? Despite the animated loading page and the
cartoons, this is a text-heavy site, including a well-concealed
newsletter. Tiny white type on a uniformly blue-grey background is less
stylish than dreary. And don't touch your browser's back button, or
you'll have to face the opening animation again.

Content: 7, Usability: 5, Appearance: 6

- agencyrepublic.com

Agency Republic's site, a symphony in red, opens with a speeded-up video
of its staff milling about, accompanied by a tinkly song: playful, cute,
insufferable. You get this thing every time you enter the site, and it's
a puzzle to turn the sound off. Indeed, you have to do a lot of puzzling
to navigate the site at all, so inept is the interface.

Most pages require you to mouse over red links on a red background,
partially hidden behind white content panels that appear (slowly) when
you first open the page. Scroll bars don't look like scroll bars, and
when you go to the "Work" page, the main menu slides out of sight. As
for content, the agency's work is comprehensively displayed, and there's
a useful list of job vacancies. But you'll be lucky to find anything
compelling to read about the thinking or the people, unless you care
that "Dana wants to be a photographer when she grows up".

Content: 6, Usability: 4, Appearance 5

- amvbbdo.com

Another tired visual metaphor: a scribbling-hand loading page leads to a
scruffy desktop strewn with Post-it notes, torn notepad pages, receipts
and train tickets, which are the navigation links. There's nothing to
say what Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO does, but at least the links have
sensible labels: "Contacts"; "Clients"; "Our Work" etc. Sensible, that
is, except for "Boasting Bit", which is where you find the agency's
commendably hard-selling three-page manifesto. Galleries of print and TV
ads are presented without any sort of caption, not even the clients'
names. "Awards" is similarly gnomic, displaying the number of prizes
without saying what they were for. Indeed, there's no other text except
in the useful "Recruitment" section. The colour scheme throughout is
dingy, and Flash insists you use a scribbled "Main Menu" link to
navigate. Touch the browser back button and you'll be catapulted right
out of the site to the last site you were looking at. Infuriating.

Content: 5, Usability: 6, Appearance: 6

- ogilvy.com

Ogilvy's homepage is dominated by the bottom half of David Ogilvy's
signature, which looks more like a mistake than a design statement. But
the page tells you what the agency does and has meaningful (if tiny)
navigation links. One click takes you to contacts, press releases,
company information, the agency's portfolio, or the individual
organisations under the Ogilvy banner.

Being HTML-based, the site works properly. The type can be enlarged and
searched; the back and forward buttons on your browser work; and if you
want to find out how Ogilvy came to win a Cyber Lion at Cannes, Googling
those words will take you to the right page. Sadly, though, the
portfolio is hidden behind a wall of gratuitous Flash. And the site
looks corporate and reads worse, with no sense of fun.

The most stimulating things to read are in the "History" section, which
seems symbolic.

Content: 6, Usability: 8, Appearance: 6

- daredigital.com

This is a bold and straightforward site that means business. The opening
page carries only a striking example of the agency's animated work -
different each time you come to the site - and a text menu; it could do
with a one-liner to say what Dare does.

Subsequent pages are largely made up of concise and well-written bursts
of resizeable, searchable HTML text. It's one click to Dare's
self-description, which is 27 well-chosen words long, and two clicks to
biographies of its "People", sensibly concentrating on the agency's
13-strong management team.

"News" is scanned-in from the trade press and big enough to be legible.
"Work" is ingeniously presented in situ, on mocked-up web and newspaper
pages, but there's no commentary on it.

"Clients" is a let-down, though, with just a page of logos not linked to
the work. With Flash kept to a minimum, the site doesn't break the
browser, the content is accessible from Google and, with the exception
of the "Work" pages, it will work on a phone. A nice piece of work - and
a good advertisement for the agency.

Content: 7, Usability: 9, Appearance: 8

- vizeum.co.uk

This is a pug-ugly site whose mustard, black and grey colour scheme
suggests it might belong to the AA. Everything is squeezed into a tiny
panel, apparently cut out with blunt scissors, and the opening page says
nothing about what Vizeum does. To move around, you have to sit through
a succession of slow-loading transitions touting Vizeum's baffling
in-house slogans: "smile synthesizers", "chemists of conversation",
"positive connections". It takes three clicks, and a lot of hanging
about, to find a phone number. Interested in the track-record of
Vizeum's management? Hard luck: but here's a page of yellow-skinned
Simpsons-style caricatures of the entire staff, telling you nothing but
their first names. The writing, when it eventually appears, is clumsy,
and as for the work, there's just a list of clients and not one word
about what Vizeum achieved for them.

Warning: inadvertently clicking your browser's back button will take you
to a blank page. D'oh!

Content: 4, Usability: 4, Appearance: 4

- rapieruk.com

Rapier's site looks bright, loads quickly and lets you get to the
information you want. On the downside, the homepage has too much
"mission-defining" type, makes annoying noises you can't turn off and
features an unmarked clickable link (to "our take on the world", which
you might think was important). But "Contacts" and the agency's "Story"
(an attractive slideshow) are only one click away.

Management biographies, individual news clippings and specific examples
of the work take two clicks: and the work is accompanied by brief boasts
about its success. There is nothing about recruitment, but the site
reads well, and it has good web manners.

A parallel HTML version means you can enter from a non-Flash device such
as a mobile phone and get to the content from a Google search.

A purposeful, well-thought-out site that reflects well on Rapier.

Content: 8, Usability: 8, Appearance: 8

- nakedcomms.com

Is an advertising agency like a doll's house? Not unless you are Naked.
Its site is entirely based on that metaphor, which would have been old
hat at the turn of the millennium. The result is more animated greetings
card than website. Finding even the most basic information requires you
to mouse around the screen in the hope of unearthing something useful
among animated animals, kitchen appliances, clocks and office equipment.
And you will grow old waiting for the pages to load. You can find the
agency's work under "Gallery", but it is buried deep. And it is pretty
feeble that a link to "reel" should end with the dreaded words "Coming
Soon". Compelling and purposeful text, meanwhile, is notable by its
absence.

Content: 5, Usability: 4, Appearance: 9

- motherlondon.com

The opening screen of this site promises to tell you "EVERYTHING YOU
WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT MOTHER BUT WERE TOO AFRAID TO ASK". In fact, it
tells you nothing, other than that Mother has a beautiful building full
of beautiful young people. A QuickTime VR panorama, which opens in an
annoying full-screen window and is painfully slow to reload, allows you
to roam around the premises. You can click on individuals and objects to
find out about them. The information - or misinformation - you are given
is of no discernible value except, perhaps, if you are an identity
thief. You'll look in vain for anything about advertising or the agency,
even its phone number.

Masses of work has obviously gone into this magnificent folly - the
building doesn't look bad either - but if I was a client, I'd be
wondering about how Mother was spending my money.

Content: 0, Usability: 2, Appearance: 5.