‘Shocking’ is probably a bit too strong, but Channel 4’s website has always felt poorly designed to my mind. And the thing is, I bet it’s really well resourced.
Case in point. I wanted to get to the website of the new Channel 4 comedy The IT Crowd, where you can watch episodes in advance online.
Go to the homepage. There’s a big Flash banner at the top promoting a handful of programmes. Last week The IT Crowd was one of them. Not this week. No problem, since there are posters all over the country advertising it, there’ll be a link on the front page won’t there? Nope.
OK, let’s go to the section likeliest to contain comedy. There are 16 categories across the top of the screen. Entertainment seems the obvious one to go for. I can find links for The OC, and Electronic Sudoku. Also Six Feet Under and 30 Days. But no sign of C4’s big new sitcom. There’s a little tabbed box in the middle of the screen that’s currently showing the Prizes tab. One of the tabs promises “More Sites”. This looks promising (if a little hidden): Shameless, Lost, Invasion, Six Feet Under. I need to scroll further: My Name Is Earl, Desperate Housewives, Richard & Judy, Hollyoaks, T4. No sign.
I’ve been to the show’s website before. I know it exists. It’s the biggest marketed C4 produced programme at the moment. I must be missing something obvious (and maybe I am, but I’ve followed all these steps twice).
Now I could just go to the schedule and link to it from there, but I might not know what day it’s on. Let’s continue to find it as a fresh user.
I take another look at the categories at the top of the screen: News, Film, Home, Life all seem wrong, as do History, Science, Community and Shop.
Hang on. Video might be a good bet. I know they’re streaming video on the site. That’s why I was there before. Here I find lots of trailers for upcoming shows, exclusive web stuff like a film programme, Movie Rush, they seem to be promoting a lot (Why is this exclusive to the web incidentally? Is Jonathan Ross the last word on television film reviews with either Newsnight Review or the Culture Show being the only other options? Isn’t there room on More 4 for this?). No sign of The IT Crowd though.
I try Culture, and Health without any luck.
Then I see IT on the Learning page, but it’s The 100 Hottest Web Searches 2005. No use.
I give in. I go to the A-Z listing and find it under “I”. The IT Crowd (I’m saving you my pain here) with its oh-so-guessable URL (http://www.channel4.com/entertainment/tv/microsites/I/itcrowd/ – OK, so channel4.com/itcrowd works too, but that’s beside the point) is indeed classified as Entertainment. So why couldn’t I find it? Is it a freak content management system blip? Perhaps it’s showing up when you read this. I don’t know, but it’s poor execution.
Oh, and I couldn’t get episode 3 to play on either my home or work computer. The first two had been fine. Very poor.
[UPDATE: I was on the More 4 website today (16/2/06) and they were running a survey on their website, so in the spirit of making a negative into a positive, I completed it. It was one of the most poorly considered questionnaires I’ve ever come across with questions that were simply impossible to answer – the multiple choices had worked for one question but simply cutting and pasting them into the next didn’t work. When asked about what words I associated with the website, there was precisely one “negative” word in a list of around 15 words. The negative that was there was wrong. I couldn’t tick any of the words in truth.
It seems that the major problem is the same as the major “portals” had at the height of the dotcom boom: the site is trying to be all things to all people. Look, despite what some sites seem to think, I don’t want, need, or expect one site to serve my every whim. If I’m putting together a website based around a TV station, every page on it should be related to either a programme or a genre of programming.
I think C4 genuinely believe that they’re putting together a general entertainment site. They’re not. Channel4.com should be there to supplement, promote and provide an adjunct to the TV channels.
Don’t try too hard. I don’t want to blog on your site. I won’t be using channel4.com to buy my music from (unless you can get something exclusively).
Anyway, my extra bit of ranting ends hear. I hope whoever examines the data from my questionnaire uses it positively.]