Unfortunately, it didn't work as well as their users would have liked, and quite a few of them made that very clear. Others left complaints on public service site HelloPeter.com. While technology news site Tectonic gave them a scathing review about their lack of support for web standards, 84% of MyBroadband users voted that they should consider another redesign. Even Wikipedia joined in on the action, claiming Ster-Kinekor had "the slowest loading website in Africa"!

The people spoke, Ster-Kinekor listened, and four months later, they re-redesigned.

Present day. This post is not another review. Our design community and local bloggers provided them with more than enough useful, experienced and free feedback to improve their online presence, and I'm not going to waste my time again since judging by their new site, they're content to continue learning by making their own mistakes. I'm not saying the new site is a mistake, but I wouldn't call it an improvement either. I'll explain why. Here's a snippet from what I wrote last time, which I refrained from expanding on:

With some forward-thinking, Ster-Kinekor could potentially have one of the largest national websites

Consider this. Ster-Kinekor have, according to them, over 1.5 million members in their Movie Club. That's 1.5 million potential website users, if I'm correct in assuming that those members with access to cinema have access to the web too.

I was a Movie Club member for a number of years until late 2003, during which I received regular e-mail updates informing me of the latest releases, competitions and special offers, my points balance, etc. That was great, but it never developed further for whatever reason. But what about today, three years later? With 1.5 million users knocking at their door, the opportunities they're faced with are phenomenal; a web marketer's wet dream. So why are they still treating their website like brochureware? What about this "Movie Club" that they promote so much?

After more than six years online, you'd think they would have progressed from that phase of redesigning every few months in favour of providing their users with long-term practicality and feature-rich services.

Once upon a time...

• My Ster-Kinekor website would recognize me and welcome be back on return visits.
• It would already know my region and closest cinema.
• It would let me buy movie tickets with a few easy clicks, without requiring plugins or having to disable my browser's popup blocker.
• It would let me link to individual pages of the site on my blog, and send page links to my friends and family. These links wouldn't break for the next 5 years.
• I'd be able to customize the site based on my personal preference.
• It would offer me recommendations sent to me by my Movie Club friends, and groups that I'd joined.
• I'd be able to write my own movie reviews, and share them with other members.
• I could meet other members that share similar interest in movies.
• It would show me new release trailers based intuitively on previous movies I'd watched, reviewed, or added to my favourites list.
• It would let me keep a list of movies that I hadn't yet seen, and compare it with those of my friends so that we know which DVD to hire next, or which ones I could buy as gifts through the Ster-Kinekor online shop.
• It would automatically enter me into competitions.
• It would reward me with a free ticket if I'd booked more than 10 in the last 6 months, or referred more than 5 friends to the club.

My Ster-Kinekor site would do all of that and more. What does your Ster-Kinekor site do?

UPDATE [25/09]: Consumers 'being fed a lot of hot air', by Wendy Knowler (IOL)

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?

Anyway, rant over - here's the link if you miss listening to ads all day long: http://5fm.co.za/5fm2001/pages/media/5fm.asx.

I lied, rant has just begun. More poorly designed websites:

• SABC Corporate - inappropriate use of frames, popup windows, and a navigation that only works in Internet Explorer, when it wants to. And what's the deal with the little squares which supposedly skin the site? The site is incredibly slow but I doubt that's the reason it falls apart in any modern web browser.
• Ster-Kinekor - completely unnecessary use of frames, and bad use of drop-down form fields as navigation elements.

Fiddle sticks.