Websites still ‘fail to impress’

Website designers for the UK’s top 100 companies are still failing to impress consumers with their work, according to a new “mystery shopper” campaign carried out by the Interactive Media in Retail Group.

“It hasn’t been easy, or particularly worthwhile, to revisit the Times Top 100 sites,” says IMRG’s anonymous mystery shopper. Companies such as Safeway and Northern Rock score the minimum possible score of one star out of five for their uninspiring site designs.

A number of the sites appear to be unchanged since IMRG’s last mystery shopper campaign a year ago, and many have not been updated for several months, the report finds. Shell Trading and Transport and entertainments group Rank both scored badly, with news on the Rank site unchanged since October last year.

Companies which scored highly include Tesco, Alliance & Leicester and BT. As well as having websites which are easy to navigate, these groups were applauded for developing functions which actually work as intended. “Most of these companies still have a long way to go before they get it right,” says the report’s author.