Web Usability for Senior Citizens Landing Page Review

ARTICLE SNIPPET - Selling an Expert's Report on How Seniors Use the Web: The Graphic Design of this Landing Page is Clean and Functional, but Otherwise Tired and Lifeless. Does the Author's Reputation Excuse the Lame Copywriting and Other Weaknesses of the Sales Letter?

Reviewing a website published by Jakob Nielsen is a little like giving driving lessons to your father. It feels as though the roles ought to be reversed. Nielsen has a Ph.D. and holds 78 U.S. patents, most of them on ways for making the Internet easier to use. I, ahem, do not. The New York Times calls Nielsen "the guru of webpage usability." U.S. News & World Report calls him the world's leading expert on web usability." A popular German publication calls him "the world's leading expert on user-friendly design."

You get the idea. Nielsen and his colleagues have impressive credentials and a world of experience in website design and usability. Much of that experience came from usability testing. Their conclusions are based on good measurement. Then again, so is the Mequoda Method, which is a model based on measurable good practices. So I approached the task of reviewing a sales landing page for Nielsen's new report, Web Usability for Senior Citizens: 46 Design Guidelines Based on Usability Studies with People Age 65 and Older, with due respect, but not intimidation. I look at it this way: None of us is perfect. Regardless of how loudly we proclaim our values, each of us fails to achieve perfection in our work, despite our best intentions. Moreover, even the best physician cannot remove his own appendix. Despite being an advertisement for a product by the legendary Jakob Nielsen, the Usability for Senior Citizens Report landing page is far from perfect. Here's how I rate it using the Mequoda Sales Letter Landing Page Scorecard.

• Even when the product is a report that is self-described by its title, you need to state a compelling benefit in the headline—this landing page headline does not.
• They have followed their own advice with regard to graphic design—they know how to make a website that is both functional and attractive.
• This site does not benefit from the testimonials of others who have bought the report. It does, however, list some of the companies that participated in the usability testing—they help add credibility.
• The Usability for Senior Citizens Report landing page loads in 4.20 seconds at 56K according to the webpage analyzer—outstanding!
• While the Usability for Senior Citizens Report landing page does not conform to my model of what a good sales page/landing page ought to be, owing to the credentials of Jakob Nielsen, the report's author, it probably succeeds in spite of itself.

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