Dear Jytte

These are my initial observations, most of which you probably are aware of:

---- Coloplast.com ---- * There is nothing to direct users attention to the fact that Coloplast makes great efforts to measure user feedback and make products that people need.

* The title Customers is not specific enough for users to understand what this section is about and therefor is not useful to users.

I suggest that more effort should be made in integrating positive brand building throughout the site. Currently information exists in compartments and isolated from each other. Information should always be contextual. Links to information should always be distributed and grouped throughout a web site to offer relevant information when necessary.

This could be done by replacing the Customer section with features in the products/home section linking to information topics such as quick deliveries, focus groups, official testing, the medical community & coloplast etc..

In this way users who are in a decision making process will have their confidence continually built up in the Coloplast brand just by being exposed to positive messaging surrounding the Coloplast product range. Customers who have any doubts about the quality of the products can have their questions answered as they browse.

--- Customer page ---- * If a user links to this page they are confronted with a large graphic that has little relevance to the one sentence provided. Surveys show that users resent graphics when they have no purpose to the information they are seeking, however users are willing to wait for graphics if they are relevant to their goal.

* There is a repetition of the phrase As worldwide provider of high-quality and innovative healthcare products and services. This page lacks any real content and combined with the large graphic provides little or no substance.

* customer responsive approach - is not explained.

---- Meeting Customers Needs ---- * The text is ambiguous and, at times, provides little or no practical information.

* There is no explanation of what measuring methods are. To understand market needs, we measure customer satisfaction. Coloplast uses the same method for measuring customer satisfaction across all subsidiaries and product divisions.

* Flags are confusing to users who are not familiar with other countries flag colours

* The large Caring together for life graphic is badly compressed and is not explained to the user

* There is a great deal of talk of cooperation and working with various doctors etc.., but no examples or case studies are mentioned. No positive results are named connection with the cooperation.

In an age where users have heard thousands of scare stories of large corporations making big profits, damaging the environment, saving on health & safety practices and misleading their customers people want to hear specific examples that offer proof. These examples need to have personal testimony, comprehensive, but not confusing, facts & figures, and real world benefits to them as the user.

---- Organisations ---- * Just enough information to be confusing to end users

* Too little information to be useful to professionals

* We cooperate closely with medical specialists, - how?

---- Conclusion ---- I suggest removing this section entirely. It is isolated, fragmented and offers little or no real value to the customer. However, the goal of providing positive brand building and answering customers queries about the quality and safety of the products they are using does need to be addressed.

Furthermore, analysis shows that navigation and information that are separated reduce usability ratings. That means that information, or links to information, needs to be positioned closely with the topic that is being browsed at the time. For example; users who are reading about a new colostomy bag would benefit by having links to information about the speed of delivery, reliability , results of real world testing, observations of focus groups, environmental concerns and comments from other users who use that product in their lives.

I would therefor like to suggest a modular approach to information presentation. By providing a library of small teaser graphics/text that could be positioned in the sidebars which link to some of the topics I have mentioned in the above examples. In that way we will remove the island of information and instead replace it with small bites of information that, even if the users doesnt link to that page, still gives a positive and informative message to the user.

-- Solution -- On the HOME PAGE I suggest two choices be presented to users:

1. ARE YOU A USER OF OUR PRODUCTS? Can you trust the product you use?--> Click here

2. ARE YOU A HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALS Can you recommend Coloplast products to your patients?--> Click here

- End users Section- The following topics should be discussed in a easy to understand way. The text should be brief but factual with no technical jargon.

TOPICS: * Production practices * Quality management * How products are developed * Who is involved * Testimony from real world customers * Testimony from named doctors * Environmental policy (link to that section) * Did you know? Sidebar with informative facts about things such as how small the failure rate is of Coloplast products, how quickly products are delivered, how many units are shipped annually, how many years it takes to produce a product from initial conception, how many customers Coloplast has etc.

- Professionals Section - Similar to above but providing more technical results, named organisations, named doctors and any information that is respected by professionals.

-- Anonymous, May 03, 2000