On my first post here, I’m going to have a look at Wataniya’s new website (www.wataniya.mv) which was released few weeks back. I like the idea, but feels poorly implemented. Here are my opinions about the website.

General Website Layout.

• Website seems to be more single paged. Because it wont let you navigate to any other page on the website. Single-page design works if you don’t have much content.
• The orb on the top with the clouds looks beautiful on my screen (1920 x 1080px) . Because the orb is complete from both sides. But if you try it on a 1024px resolution, it look odd, because of the incomplete orb.
• No grid layout and components on the website poorly placed.

Navigation

• Basically it has four navigation bars. Makes very confusing to the visitors of the website about where to find what. For eq: There is Services link and there is BroadBand /3G + and IDD / Roaming which is a service. Would be easier if they are grouped and used as drop down menu’s.
• The navigation links on the first line which is related to the member actions should be separated from the website main navigational links. Wataniya International has a good navigational structure with a rich footer which includes grouped links to other pages.
• Its a bad idea to use ajax based modal boxes to view all the contents on a website like this. A website which has lots of information and individual pages which needs to be shared or linked from other blogs/articles/social media. In this case its almost impossible to share on such platform.
• Website links are NOT search engine friendly. Eg: http://wataniya.mv/prepaid.php <– NOT Search Engine Friendly while http://wataniya.mv/services/prepaid is friendly and is easier to read too.
• The modal windows carries the same header including the logo on the main page repeating the same stuffs all over again. And the use of text “please click outside the window to close it” is almost the first time i have ever seen such a wording to close just a modal window. Instead use “Close“  would be enough. I am sure the visitors will understand, as they are very familiar with modal windows like light-boxes. And it looks very odd if you lands on an individual page like this http://wataniya.mv/enterprise.php and you see the text on the right top and you have no idea what it means. Problems like this could have been avoided with better planning on UX.

Splash

• This area is normally where the focal point of the website is. Almost all the similar websites use this area to promote their services and products or may be events on a more visual way to grab visitors attention. Remember the WOW feeling you get when you see human face with a nice concept well designed. The printed posters and billboards on roads, this is where they live on the website. The orb cover-flow idea is old, and useless in my opinion. It just confuses the visitors more.

The Map

• The Idea of showing the map on the first page is a good idea, if you want your visitors to find out about your community. And how they can involved .
• If the map is used to show geo-tagged photos of Maldives, then it needs show the satellite view and show complete maldives or at least the half. Not a map view of Male’. With the current tagged photos, it seems like the locations are misplaced. Because i see some photos of resorts tagged to Male’.
• Having action button all around confuses the users about what actions or features they can actually interact with. Traveling FAQ’s, IDD rates and Visiting the Maldives links needs to be used on main navigational areas. Not in the community area.
• Using the map to show coverage and retail shops will be very visual and more user friendly way. For eg: using heat maps on coverages or pin drops to show retail shops.
• Map options on the left, “Maldives Map“, “World Map” is a useless shortcut if you dont plan to open the whole community to the world. Allow photos to be posted abroad.
• On bottom of the map, the options to view photos and videos needs to be placed next to each other with minimal text like “Show Photos” and “Show Videos“. Or may be no text at all. But the icons needs to be more connected to the map area. With the current icon it feels more like the icons on the left of the map which has nothing to do with interacting with the map. And by clicking on it, will scroll to the top of the page and its hard to tell if there was any change to the map, or its where we need to check on, as the other links on the website opens on a model window and we expect for it this time too. But nothing happens.
• “Share Your World” icon gives another modal window with the registration. But this time it has very hard to read text (“Register or login and start sharing your photos and videos“) outside the box.
• I want to write more about the user experience on member area’s later. But for now, lets say we are using this modal window to upload a photo, and while the upload is in progress and we click outside the box mistakenly and the model closes. Wonders what will happen to the photo which was being uploaded.

Photos & Videos.

• Its hard to say if the photos and video thumbnails are related to the map above it or not. I like the way the photo uploads are arranged but the video uploads has a different style. With likes and views. Photos comes with same features wonders why they are styled differently.
• Clicking any photo takes you to a gallery. Instead there can be a link “View gallery” or “View all photos” to view the gallery. Leave the individual photos enlarged when clicked on them. In my opinion this is the only place where we can use a light-box or a modal window on this website. Click on the thumbnails enlarges with all the information about the selected photo. Same goes for videos as well.

Social Feeds

• Twitter and facebook feeds are nicely implemented. But if feel like its a bit over. Twitter feed doesn’t get updated frequently while facebook has a little activity. But basically we see the same thing. I would not have a second look at that.
• Twitter user is only used to spread news. There is NO SINGLE reply to any of the queries sent to “wataniya_mv” on twitter.
• The implementation of comment box feels more like its only there to fill the gap. There is no way we can see the previous comments. There was lots of buzz on twitter about the comments not being published or being removed after publishing. Same happened to my comment which was published and removed after. Spacings and padding’s need to be applied to the comment form. Eg: Padding from the left near the box border.

Others notables.

• No Meta information. Only a tag.
• W3C HTML validation shows 89 Errors, 3 warning(s) while W3C CSS is validated with 8 errors.

These are just my personal opinions and my differ from person to person. But it depends on how much you know a bout your visitors/members. There is no straight line. It needs to be improved from the feedback you get from the REAL visitors/members. I also want to share some of the telecom website trends which i find inspirational and well implemented.

Inspirations

- Wataniya International (http://10.wataniya.com/Default_en_gb.aspx)

- Dialog Sri Lanka (http://www.dialog.lk/)

- Orange (http://www.orange.com/en_EN/)

- Airtel (Seychelles) (http://www.airtel.sc/)

- Reliance Communications (India) (http://www.rcom.co.in/Rcom/personal/home/index.html)

- Axis (Indonesia) (http://www.axisworld.co.id/?lang=en)

- Abonentiem - Tele2 (Latvia) (http://www.tele2.lv/)

- Digi (Malaysia) (http://www.digi.com.my/)

- ZONG (Pakistan) (http://www.zong.com.pk/)

About Author: nattu: Pioneer for most of the innovative websites in Maldives. Nattu is a UX expert who designed and developed solutions for the leading companies. Founder of muraasil.com and is the creative director at semicolon pvt ltd. Follow nattu on twitter @reallynattu Website: http://www.semicolon.com.mv