Ster-Kinekor redesign
A couple of local bloggers have commented on Ster-Kinekor's new website which launched earlier this month - Loading Ster-Kinekor... by Gideon, New Ster Kinekor website by Craig and Ster Kinekor blows fresh horse manure by Jeremy.
That last link pretty much sums up the general sentiment. The only other mention of the redesign I've found comes via 5fm, although I'm assuming this marketing bullshit was spewed out by Ster-Kinekor themselves:
Faster online booking and more to win with Ster-Kinekor's new website! New techniques to ensure speedy browsing and flexibility in design have been incorporated to ensure Ster-Kinekor remains at the cutting edge of current web trends.
I'm sorry, what?? You said faster and speedy? Flexibility? Current web trends? There is nothing faster, flexible or current about their new site, it's the complete opposite in fact: a prime example of how not to design and develop a website. I get really annoyed and upset when a site is so poorly constructed, and even more so when a news article such as the above creates such a pretense of what good online design really involves.
The site is slower than it's ever been. With some forward-thinking, Ster-Kinekor could potentially have one of the largest national websites but instead, they turn their visitors away before they've even entered the site. I visited a number of times today on a broadband connection, and waited for over a minute on average for the homepage to load. Sometimes it didn't load at all.
Let's assume it loads. You first arrive at a "flash required" splash page which is so unnecessary when we have SWFObject. The Flash plugin isn't even a true requirement because you can browse the site without it. And I'd hate to think what this splash page is doing for their SEO.
And then, before you've even entered the site, you're redirected to their secure server. If you're using Internet Explorer, you have to accept a security warning first. Again, this is completely unnecessary. Why they don't simply make this SSL connection when it's required (ie. when credit card details are shared) is beyond me. I'm willing to bet that 50% of their visitors have already given up at this point, picked up their phone and booked telephonically instead.
But let's continue and assume you've waited. The site has finally loaded, and you want to book a movie. And let's face it, why else would you visit their site? Great, so what now? Your eyes skim across the page and focus on a couple of drop-down lists. So you start to fill them out, because you missed the inconspicuous "book seats" button. The form is horrible. Why have they used abbreviations for the days? Everybody knows Durban is in KZN, so why include it as part of the region? Why are some of the Movie titles followed by "Ff"?
Then you're presented with a choice: Movie Info or What's Showing.
I get what they're trying to do here, but it falls flat. The first option relates to the movie you selected, if you did. The second option relates to the venue you selected, if you did. Rather than making you work out the relationship or make a choice, why couldn't they just settle with one single reliable "Submit" button?
But let's continue and assume you knew what you were doing. You select your movie and click "Movie Info". You then arrive at an overview page for the movie, which contains no less than 3 "Book Seats" buttons. You click one of them.
And then you end up here - the same form you filled out on the homepage. Only this time, they're kind enough to provide you with "Search Tips"... number 5 being:
You can view the Movie Info, OR Book Seats directly
Still no "Book Seats" button though. So you fill out the form again, hit "Movie Info" hoping that this time will be different. Nope - you land up at the movie overview page again, faced with three "Book Seats" buttons that send you back to the form to continue an infinite loop.
But let's continue and assume you've discovered what to click (you have to click on "What's Showing") and have selected a time. You're then asked for the number of seats. This is quite fun, try it yourself. Take note of the number of seats available, then enter in 15 and hit "Proceed".
Marvel for a moment at the wonderful flexibility of their design, and hit "Proceed" again without filling in any details. After arriving at the next page, hit your browser's Back button twice, or until you arrive back at the page asking you to select a number of seats. Notice anything strange about the number of seats now available? Hmmm. How reassuring.
There are many other issues that make this site a failure:
- Their navigation menu moves down the page as you scroll (in Firefox), covering any content you were hoping to read or forms that you were intending to fill out.
- The grossly oversized "Mail this article to a friend" buttons on their News articles aren't fully clickable - only the text bits are.
- Their Online Booking FAQ takes you to their online booking form, with the form fields disabled. What's that about?
If you missed it, their new payoff line is "Be queueless not clueless". If their website is anything to go by, I'd rather stand in a queue than try and figure out their online booking process again.
Commented Fiaz Mahomed, CEO, Ster-Kinekor Theatres, "Everything about our new website was guided by customer feedback. Our primary aim is provide to their needs in the best way we can and continually raise the bar on our own achievements."
I urge you to use their contact form (I hope it works for you) and send them some real feedback on their new site. They need to catch a wake up.
UPDATE [14/07]: Standard issues by Richard Frank, over at Tectonic.
UPDATE [08/08]: MyADSL's Ster Kinekor website poll results - Do you think Ster Kinekor needs to reconsider their website and perhaps redesign it?
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34 Comments
You know, I have always marveled at what a piece of crap the Sterkinekor website is, and wondered how it was possible that such a high profile site could be designed so badly. And then just the other day, I saw the new site, was stoked, then immediately bummed again. If I as a webdeveloper is stumped at how to navigate or book a ticket, I have no idea how the general public would even begin to go about it. Everything about the site is counter-intuitive, it’s like they don’t want you to give them your money. And how can their be a MOVIE INFO button once you’ve selected a theatre ? This doesn’t make sense, and doesn’t do anything at all if you click it. If I were them, I would forget about the flash and scrolling marquee styled jols, and look into an easy to navigate, informative site.
Wierd!
I started reading your blog entry, clicked on the Ster link; it still has not loaded; Replied to two emails + sent one and still waiting; so far, based on what I can see, from the background; it has the same theme as the ‘5fm’ website;
ahh, now i got navigation,,, can’t wait for the content,,,
will repsond when it’s done; say around 12 (hahahahahah!)
Okay, i just finished reading, Craig’s and Jeremy’s review; and I am still waiting,,, i thought it was my connection,,, but ahem, nope,,,
will come back,,, hopefully,,,
arrrrg, i give up.
don’t have time to wait any longer, I trying the ‘book movie’ thing for X-MEN, but eish,,, took too long, you are right,,, i’d rather, que;
word.
Whoops. Don’t have Flash installed on my work machine (FreeBSD). Didn’t the last website have some javascript code that allowed you to click on the seats and see which ones were booked?
I always felt that it was better compared to the Java system that NuMetro (Computicket) used.
Did any of you have a look at the source? Here are a few code snippets that I enjoyed:
A few code snippets that I enjoyed:
Not allowed in Firefox:
function setWindowStatus(){
window.status = “Ster-Kinekor”;
}
Inline styles:
Include booking.js twice … It’s really important! Funny thing is that I’m not even on the booking page:
thanks for picking this up Dame! I wasn’t in the mood to write an indepth ‘report’ about their site.
I added some code snippets in my post above but I guess they got filtered out…
Yeah they were :P
Changing the window status is allowed in Firefox (I do it on this site), but as a preference (Advanced JavaScript Settings) it’s disabled by default.
thanks for the indepth look at the pathetic new website Damien. I went to queue because it took too long to load…
Hey D, glad you did a more indepth review. When I was writing I thought about going back to clarify some of my points, but it irritated me so much that I rather decided to sphew out my usual dribble and leave the tough review for someone else. Next time we go to movies, you wait in the queue ;)
Yup. Doesn’t even load for me from Ireland on a freaking good connection.
Couldn’t agree with you more Damien (and everyone else who left comments). I actually managed to book a ticket through the site the other day (believe it or not), but as you’ve already reported, I got stuck in a frustrated circle trying to figure out their navigation. I just couldn’t find an obvious way to book a ticket. Ster Kinekor, this needn’t be so complicated!
Admittedly though, giving them a pinch of credit here, the after-purchase stage of buying my tickets was quite a bit more assuring. (ie. the plain-text confirmation email arrived timeously and looked accurate, and my tickets were available at the venue).
According to AfriNIC, I see that they’re hosting with Internet Solutions, a god-awful service provider if ever there was one! This should explain the lag for Paul in Ireland; for the rest of us though, Internet Solutions is either stuffing something up badly on their network, or Ster Kinekor’s got a poor 286 machine with 2mb RAM running MS-DOS serving up pages to all their hopeful customers!
Perhaps Ster Kinekor should spend some of that great big wad of cash that they milk from me, on:
- Hiring a skilled and competent web development agency/team, where the ’suits’ have backbones when presenting to clients (ie. they aren’t “yes” men/women)
- Developing a modern, plain, simple and lightweight website based primarily on functionality Lock away the designers until the backend’s in place if you have to! Goddamn designers, always get their knickers in a knot and become dectatorial on projects like these. Enough!
- Buying a decent server-cluster infrastructure to take care of the load issues.
- Dumping Internet Solutions and doing business with a service provider who have a clue.
- Hiring a server-admin who’s competent to make sure that things stay running smoothly.
Perhaps these are just teething problems, which however wouldn’t explain the previous generation of their online presence. Please Ster Kinekor, don’t waste money this way!
WA: I think the site was designed (and built) by Aqua Online… they also did Vodacom.co.za. :P
Well that explains it all! :)
They could really do with disabling directory browsing. One look at that directory tree and you can understand why the site is such a mess – they do version control (and very badly) on their live server for pete’s sake! HAhah!!
Prezence SA were responsible for the little flashy competition thing linked off the homepage. If they had a hand in the rest of the site then that would explain a couple of things too. I mean, look at their own site which is just as impossible to navigate – those little dots actually run away from your mouse cursor as you try to chase them around the screen! So ridiculous…
How much is a ticket in SA at the mo anyway? (too lazy to go through the process here)
It was contracted to iafrica.com, who then outsourced to freelance designer – Liza Ackerman
i dont think a .NET/IIS combination has ever blown users away in terms of speed and efficiency..
…this is the kind of thing that happens when BIG business goes for the ‘budget seats’…
Regardless of the platform, with proper planning and intuitive interface design upfront coupled with solid design and sound development, this site could have worked and not been another pile of steaming crap delivered by marketing execs whose online involvement equates to forwarding porn around the office…
…but in most cases it’s not people like you lot or coda making these pitches, it’s the used-car salesmen who get to tender for these eventual web blunders.
…and Nats, a ticket at Nu-Metro costs R37 (Cinema Starz @ Grandwest is R25 and the sound is superior, if you’re on that side of the world/boerewors curtain)
Nice post Damian. But you should also read up about usability and accessibility. When I visit your site I have to increase the text size several times and then still sometimes copy all the text and paste it into my text editor just to read it. Dark grey on black might be aesthetic but it ain’t readable.
Thanks GV, you’re correct and not the first person to point that out either. Although I suspect my fonts aren’t rendering as intended on your Linux setup?
damien, they must’ve have plugged the directory browsing…
natalie, ticket prizes for ster-kinekor are : R7 (on Vitality), R14 (normal Cinema Junction price), R19 (inflated Cinema Junction price), R38 (Cinema Classic and Nouveau) and ofcourse half price on Tuesdays if you have a Movie Club Card. Except for Vitality, you’ll always just pay R7 – which is half the price of hiring a ‘Latest’ DVD at most video stores!
I agree with this comment. I’ve been trying to get onto this site for the past 20 minutes and it is still loading.
THIS SITE SUCKS!!!
Being a busy mom with kids on holiday, I sometimes at very short notice decide to take them to movies. This happened last week:
09h00 – Check web for Numetro and Sterkinekor what is showing for the morning show.
09h15 – All info for Numetro received and booked – still waiting for Sterkinekor page to open…….
I have even called them and asked why the page is so slow. The reply: Ja we have had a few people mention that it takes a bit long?!?!?!?!
Verdict: Stuff the loyalty card – Numetro here we come!
is the ster kinekor site totally fkng unhinged????
i dont even know wat it looks like- i can never get on it!!!!
ster kinekor suck.
i have tried loasd of times to access there site.
it just never works.
what a load of morons, why dont they just keep it simple!
I noticed yesturday that they are actually going to upgrade there site.
Have the people finally been heard?
The new site is up… its now in flash……………………
*bites tongue*
*screams into a pillow*
yup, just saw it now too… it seems to work pretty smoothly now, no more 20min pageload waits. but everything in flash ?
I’ve posted an update about the SterKinekor site… there were obvious problems and 4 months later… yeah, they’ve redesigned AGAIN….
For me the site just stays blank (iBurst broadband, FireFox 2 on XP). But it does have a very nice blue background!
Sites which rely on flash suck! Wake up Sterkinekor!
Numetro here I come…
26 May 2006
Farrel Lifson08:48 am
I’ve got to agree with you there. Last week I tried to book a movie on their new site and each page was taking 3 minutes to load (this was on 384Kbps ADSL). And then just like you I couldn’t figure out how to book the damn ticket because I was going in circles with their stupid navigation.