A reason to NEVER have a unified single web style for all aspects of a business

One of my long time reasons / complaints to firms about trying to have a SINGLE look and feel for all different aspects of their web sites is exemplified by what has happened / been caused by Best Buy as shown in this eWEEK quote (http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2100885,00.asp)

 

"As it tries to navigate the minefield that today's multichannel retail strategies have become, Best Buy officials are conceding that "human error" and employee "confusion" were the reasons customers were shown a site displaying higher brick-and-mortar prices while incorrectly being told that the displayed site was showing online prices.

The confusion stems from two visually identical sites that Best Buy employees can show customers. The sites have only a handful of minor functionality differences, with the key difference being that the prices are sometimes different, said Chap Achen, director of order management for Best Buy. "

If they has NOT pursued a unified look i.e. so called "experts" telling them that all their sites must look and act identical so that people always see the exact same view even if they bounce around 2 to 50 different logical web sites - the workers would have NEVER shown people the wrong site.

 

A completely different color scheme - or yes a completely differently designed site all together - they would have never make this type of mistake at all - EVER.

 

A pure web store has different needs to be met ways to operate than a walk-in store. By buying into the mantra of marketing people wanting to have a uniform look and feel these mistakes will ALWAYS happen.

 

How many times you go to a site and want to find reference material for a product yet you end up on a page asking you to PURCHASE something? This happens all the time on HP.com site - and unless you REALLY pay attention you could buy it without knowing (especially if you use automated fill-in programs at checkout.) Then you have to forcefully navigate back to the tech support area - and you cannot tell where you are on the site since EVERYTHING LOOKS THE SAME from domain to domain.

 

Talk about usability problems! The people have NO CLUE where they are at since everything looks the same!