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Q: Web site section review ( Answered 5 out of 5 stars,   6 Comments )
Question  
Subject: Web site section review
Category: Computers > Internet
Asked by: lizardnation-ga
List Price: $10.00
Posted: 06 Jul 2002 03:09 PDT
Expires: 05 Aug 2002 03:09 PDT
Question ID: 36988
Hello,

Would you please review the "Careers & Recruitment" section of the
www.shell.com site from the user friendliness point of view? :-)

/Lizardnation
Answer  
Subject: Re: Web site section review
Answered By: mcfly-ga on 06 Jul 2002 06:49 PDT
Rated:5 out of 5 stars
 
Hi Lizardnation

Having dabbled in the field of web site design, I hope I can give you
a comprehensive review both from the layman's point of view and that
of someone with a little technical knowledge.

Accessing the page with a 56K modem connection the page loaded almost
instantly which is always a good start, few users are likely to have a
connection speed much slower than that.  Superficially the layout of
the page is logical and simple to navigate with the functional and
user-friendly navigation bar in the left-hand frame.

Before looking in depth at the site content I tested it in 800x600
monitor resolution instead of the increasingly common 1024x768 mode. 
This introduces a horizontal scroll bar which must be used to view all
of the 'Web Features' right hand frame and might be seen as a slight
design flaw.  However, the page is still perfectly usable and I would
not count that as a major negative point.

The addition of small images next to the links giving access to
sub-pages of each major section gives the page a more user-friendly
feel, but they would benefit from being linked to the target page.

Looking first at the 'Students and New Graduates' section, given the
volume of information to be presented I thought that the page was very
successful in breaking it down into manageable sections.  When
presented with a page of text at the base level of each category, the
use of related images to break up the paragraphs made for an easier
read and increased the visual interest of the page.

Under the 'Areas of Employment' subsection, I thought the summary
table was a good idea to explain which fields are open to people with
which qualifications.  Having specified a particular field, the
explanations of the work involved were helpful and sold the company
well.  As a student myself, the online application form and facility
to upload a CV under the 'Apply' section provide a strong
encouragement to apply for a position with Shell.

Moving on to browse the 'Experienced professionals' pages, the
geographical breakdown of positions vacant improved the usability of
the section.  Again, the explanation of the skills required and work
involved in each job was very thorough.  Some details of the payment
package available would maybe attract more interest from prospective
employees though.

Not having a particularly extensive knowledge of Shell, I found the
'About Shell' section very informative although I suspect that the
'News and Library' articles linked to were aimed at more of a business
reader than I provided.  From the user-friendliness point of view, I
found it slightly irritating that when following the link to 'About
Shell', the navigation menu completely changed and displayed the
sub-menu for 'Our Performance' despite the fact that this was not the
page being displayed.  I suspect that this is an issue for the Shell
site as a whole, and not specific to the 'Careers and Recruitment
section'.

I would definitely agree with alienintelligence-ga in the suggestion
that a clickable map interface would benefit the 'Shell Worldwide'
page.  Other than this, listed sites were functional and logically
placed.

The help section of the site was brief and to the point.  I thought it
could maybe be a little more comprehensive, although for any
reasonably experienced internet user I would have difficulty to think
of any other potential areas of trouble.

Overall I found the 'Careers and Recruitment' pages to be very
user-friendly and hope my positive review reflects this.  One comment
on the Shell.com site as a whole which has been remedied on the C & R
section is that the page title reflects solely the full page web
address instead of a more expected 'Welcome to Shell.com' or the like.

I hope that this answer has been useful to you; if you would like any
further detail or clarification please do not hesitate to ask.


mcfly-ga

Request for Answer Clarification by lizardnation-ga on 07 Jul 2002 02:19 PDT
Hello Mcfly,

>The addition of small images next to the links giving access 
>to sub-pages of each major section gives the page a more 
>user-friendly feel, but they would benefit from being linked 
>to the target page.

Would you reference the above missing link to the images with a URL?

/Lizardnation

Clarification of Answer by mcfly-ga on 07 Jul 2002 03:23 PDT
Hi,

Sorry for not explaining that clearly enough.  It wasn't any specific
link I had in mind, but more a general idea for the site as a whole. 
For example, under the 'Students and New Graduates' section there are
options to select 'Why join Shell?', 'Training & Development', etc. as
linked to here:

http://www2.shell.com/home/Framework?siteId=careers-en&FC1=&FC2=%2FLeftHandNav%3FLeftNavState%3D1&FC3=%2Fcareers-en%2Fhtml%2Fiwgen%2Fstudentsandgraduates%2Fstudents.html&FC4=%2Fcareers-en%2Fhtml%2Fiwgen%2Fimpulse6.html&FC5=

My suggestion would be that although the text of the links works fine,
it might be nice from a user friendliness aspect to link the images as
well as the sub-section name to the new page.  Hope this clarifies my
answer satifactorarily.

mcfly-ga :)
lizardnation-ga rated this answer:5 out of 5 stars
Thanks, very well done! Not to mention thanks to Alienintelligence for
his comments. :-)

/Lizardnation

Comments  
Subject: Re: Web site section review
From: alienintelligence-ga on 06 Jul 2002 03:42 PDT
 
Just user friendliness, or would you like 
that + overall comments?

I like it... I'm pretty picky too. There is
some latency with loading, which might irk
some people (I'm on 1M+ ADSL for reference)

Shell worldwide needs a map interface.

Areas of employment under Students and Grads
is dead.

Image icons need to be hotlinked too.
On most of the sub pages, like Our Performance,
Issues, etc.

Sizing seems to be appropriate for the browser
market.

Search engine works as expected.

I like the pages, your design? Looking for more
work? ;-)

-AI
Subject: Re: Web site section review
From: lizardnation-ga on 06 Jul 2002 03:49 PDT
 
Hello Alienintelligence,

+ overall comment would be a big plus.

Nope, not mine. ;-)

/Lizardnation
Subject: Re: Web site section review
From: voila-ga on 07 Jul 2002 13:58 PDT
 
Hello Mr. Nation,

I was working your "great speeches" question but it expired and
comments can't be added.  Hope it's kosher to do so here in case
you're still interested.  Probably some overlappage within links.

http://www.stanfordplus.com/education/inspirationals/speeches.php
http://dir.yahoo.com/Education/Graduation/Speeches
http://www.chapman.edu/comm/comm/faculty/thobbs/com202/Speechlinks.html
http://douglassarchives.org/directory/General_Collections_of_Speeches_and_Historical_Docs
http://www.uiowa.edu/~commstud/resources/speech.html
http://english.hk.yahoo.com/education/graduation/Speeches
http://www.wfu.edu/administration/president/c2001.html

Search criteria:
great speeches
famous speeches
inspirational speeches
graduation speeches
commencement speeches+
Harvard/Yale/Princeton
Subject: Re: Web site section review
From: voila-ga on 07 Jul 2002 14:20 PDT
 
Forgot the Harvard link and the last one wouldn't make a bad speech either.
http://www.commencement.harvard.edu
http://www.optimizemag.com/issue/003/ethics.htm
Subject: Re: Web site section review
From: lizardnation-ga on 08 Jul 2002 03:15 PDT
 
Hello Voila,

Thanks a lot for the follow up, I tried to re-activate the other
question to allow you to paste the answer there and gain the fee for
it, but that was not available. :-)

Catch you next time!

/Lizardnation
Subject: Re: Web site section review
From: voila-ga on 08 Jul 2002 09:13 PDT
 
So not a problem for a return customer like you, LN, and here are a
few more from a Buddhist perspective.  Hope you find something
something up your alley. 
http://www.sgi.org/english/sgi_president/works/speeches/SPLIST.html

The very late,
V

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