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“Nice site”, said my15 year-old son as he passed and caught a glimpse of Media Temple site, upon which I had just landed. I agreed because, after all, the boy had inherited his keen powers of web observation from me. So, putting on my critic’s cap, I set forth to prove us right.
My web mantra is quickly becoming “all is not as it appears”. I had clicked on the Media Temple link thinking the site had to do with media – social, digital, new, whatever prefix you choose, but media none-the-less. Silly me.
I quickly realized my mistake when, from the Media Temple logo, my eye traveled to the image of what looks like a CPU with a healthy gob of magma where the motherboard should be. “All hardware is not created equal” reads the text – ahhh, so Media Temple is a hardware manufacturer. OK, I can deal with that. The elastic bands that keep my hard drive spinning are almost worn through, so I’ve been on the lookout for a new machine. With a name like “(dpv) Nitro” (wonder what dpv stands for?), I clicked on the link looking forward to the hot specs on this slick looking cpu. Silly me.
The Nitro isn’t a cpu, it’s a Dedicated Physical Virtual Server (dpv!!) – excuse me, but what the heck is that?! Reading the remainder of the opening Nitro paragraph gave me very few clues. If anything, with a confusing mix of adjectives (physical virtual – isn’t that a contradiction?) and a steadfast refusal to get to the point, I was in a thicker haze.
It was then I realized (remember my keen sense of web observation) the confusion wasn’t because of silly me, it was the silly site. Confusion runs rampant throughout.
On the “About Us” page, I had to wade through “industry-leading”, “privately held” and “profitable” before learning that Media Temple is a web hosting company!
Back to the homepage. Let’s talk about the good bits – it won’t take long.
- Excellent design, clean with lots of white space. The links are clearly marked, specific about where they lead and not too numerous.
- Flash testimonials – regardless of how confusing their site is, I would still consider using a company with accolades from Nike, Starbucks, Sony, etc.. That’s the power of testimonials and Media temple is very wise to put them up front.
The clean design holds throughout the site. The site architecture is good, handling a lot of technical information in an uncluttered way. But, like a chain, a web site is only as strong as its weakest element. mediatemple.org’s Achilles heel is the confusing copy. It’s the reason why I went through three lines of business to learn what Media Temple did.
I would need to book space on one of their “dedicated physical machines” to cover all the issues – so I’ll cover just the ones I find most confusing:
Plain Language – This site could be the final exam for plain language 101. Feast on these:
A next generation Dedicated Physical Virtual Server, with proven reliability, is only the start. Add industry-new features including Portable OS, Backdoor Power-Panel and more to insure your projects with ample horsepower.
…industry-new?
Start using your (gs) Grid-Service immediately after your order has been provisioned with your own unique GridServer.com access domain included free!
…provisioned?
(bu) Bracket Usage- the Media Temple logo uses a bracketed acronym as a very effective design device. But it should remain just that. Perhaps through some form of corporate or brand identity initiative, someone made the decision to use the brackets prior to every mention of (mt) Media Temple or one of its (p) products, like (gs) Grid-Service or (dv) Dedicated Virtual Server. Brackets should always be used sparingly, even when used properly. But, when brackets add nothing, useless except for fulfilling some misguided effort in logo consistency, they are destabilizing to your train of thought. In other words, they are irritating – and add to the readers confusion.
Get to the Point – I don’t understand. After realizing the site was more or less devoted to Media Temple’s technology, with lots of references to new and higher-speed technologies, I thought I would click on their “Technology” link for some edification. Instead, I get the square footage of their office and learn that their “personnel require authorized escorted visitations.”, whatever that means. The one place where there is very little mention of technology is under the “Technology” link.
Confusion creates friction, FUDs and anxiety that cannot be overcome by any design. The result is a beautiful site, with clean design, inventive graphics and convincing testimonials, yet it fails to communicate and deliver its purpose.
Note from Khalid: we recently moved our hosting to Media Temple. Although we are very pleased with the service, the site copy leaves a lot to be desired!
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