The new SESAR home page
On 12-01-2011, in SESAR's Palace, by steve
We did review the first version of the SESAR web site some time ago and found that there were nice features and some frustrating ones giving rise to a bit of criticism. Of course few enterprises manage to have their very first web site meet all expectations and it would have been unfair to fault the IT folks at SESAR for their shortcomings. It was therefore with interest that I looked at the new iteration that went on-line recently.
The first thing that strikes the visitor is that the rather disturbing banner heading is now gone, replaced by a sliding set of items that do actually mean something and are not there just for the show. Click on the title in the text area of the sliding thingies and you are taken to the subject of the particular item. It is a pity that you actually have to hit the title line as the rest of the picture is not “hot”. I am used to clicking on pictures and having to hit just one line in the text area of a picture is a bit cumbersome. But this is a small irritation compared to the usefulness of the sliding items.
This is a rather busy page and the list of SESAR partners sliding to the right at the bottom does not help. I do not know about you but personally I find such moving items a distraction. There are more subtle ways of presenting a list of things.
Having the subscription fields of the Newsletter right on the top page is unusual and makes for a rather clattered look. I guess the designers have put it there to encourage people to sign up with just one click. I know, I know… having to click to get to the subscription form may stop some people. But those who are stopped should probably not be subscribing anyway. SJU please hide that form!
Of course over the past year or so, the content of the web site has been nicely filled up and it is now vitally important that the real stuff under the skin be easily accessible. This is where the new site really excels. The menu items at the top use words that everyone will understand, whether or not familiar with SESAR, and the buttons do take you exactly to the place you expect to be taken to. Having a separate menu item for ENVIRONMENT is a cute way of highlighting aviation’s focus on this important subject.
I think that overall, the new web site is a major improvement over the first version and it does certainly provide a pleasant visitor experience. Obviously, the SESAR communications experts have listened to comments made and did a good job of creating a new site that addresses those comments while bringing additional improvements too.
Check out the SESAR web site here.
