MBC's new website: a corporate failure?
A whole lot of talking is going on around the new Mauritius Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) TV/Radio website. It always is a major event when a major Mauritian company sets sails out for a new web venture and people can question and appreciate the job. Here, the great thing is that the tool used is WordPress which has now gone past the “blog” platform and has matured into a full grown Content Management System and even been awarded the Overall Best Open Source CMS award in 2009. That’s one good point but there’s a major “but” when it comes to the way the MBC managing board seems to have directed this project!
Corporate you said?
The said website is a corporate one, at least, it’s what is said on the main page title. I will not be going into an indepth analysis of the design and the website as well as its functionalities. The discussion between the webdesigner and the public is nearing trench warfare more than anything on Yashvin’s Blog with all the contradictions and accusations that go with such situations. I will not be adding to this!
My firm belief is that Mauritian companies need to mature in their use of the Internet and start working on online presence. They have to invest in development and user experience with indepth audits of user demands and conversion rates. This calls for a good deal of methodology, vision and professionalism. So my concern here is how can a huge thing like the MBC get involved in an amateur construction of its website.
Templating and project management.
To build a new website, objectives must be laid out, budgets (if any) calculated, but more important, the whole project must be managed with validation procedures, content improvement, calls to action and lead analysis. But what do we have here? A webdesigner who claims to have done the job for free by buying a template (Hello MBC managing board, don’t you even have some money to even pay for a template?) and modifying it to suit the MBC’s needs. And what does the poor chap get even with investing his own money into the project? Just a poor link to his website! This is pure slavery! The MBC might even be de-localising some of its own work to China.
So what’s the problem here? Having a webdesigner claiming high to having made just a template modification for such a big company means that all the steps required to make a real, good, managing board driving, visionary and high level website have been flushed down the toilet. All this has been boiled down to a template available to anyone and just modified. Do they care for their image? Do they have a communication & advertising department?
Amateurish and cheap.
The MBC is not the structure that bears the shiniest image in Mauritius and it would somehow have been logical that the directory board would have had the idea of making use of this occasion to buff it up but once again, the amateurs have hit home. The MBC is a leading Mauritian body and one would expect a site to its grandeur with a huge input in quality content. The whole system is heavy and loaded with glitches. Just one example, how many of you readers will ever read every word in this “About us” page. This is where the group should have had clear specifications in terms of content, design and wireframing. But none of all these are here.
An example of what “not to do”.
Overall, this whole project is a great example of how a major company should not be leading a web project. Specifications should be minute and written clearly. Each element should be made to maximise conversion and user experience. All this is done through thorough statistical analysis and user interview. Usability tests should be made to test each page, each way of delivering content and of the service and not just impose a template to any web designer. As sad as it might sound, the MBC managing committee has failed to make use of a great tool just to save money or maybe for some really obscure reason… who knows?
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Category: Management
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Do you think they had something like “specifications”?
They probably just told the guy :
“faire ene site pu nou”
Thanks for linking back
No they did not have any specifications because most companies in Mauritius don’t even know what to do with a website. Just a few really kick in but overall it’s either, as you said, “fer enn site pou nou” or it might just be the web designer that had the company as prospective client and proposed something. However, the company should be ashamed to show such lack of professionalism in any part of its communication.
In any case, they at least succeeded in creating a buzz around this.
A mega big buzzzzzzzzzzz
LOL
Good nite
Since yesterday I am watching the whole “cinema” lol. Enfin….. In anyway as I said on my blog, for a corporate site like MBC, I would have preferred to work everything from scratch using a core framework.
.-= Kurt Avish´s last blog ..Tips to be a successful freelancer job seeker on the web =-.
Developing a core framework would be a huge job. As I said, the use of WordPress is a good choice but simple template modification might be a bit light in the approach.
Sachin, right?
I appreciate your honesty. I really do.
But at the end of the day, it’s only the content and user-experience that matters. Don’t you think? It’s analogous to this eternal question: Would you prefer having a crap website but one that conforms to XHTML specs or a really great website but with plenty of errors on http://validator.w3.org/ ?
I think I would choose the second option all the time. User-experience should never be sacrificed over good code. But that’s just my opinion.
Cheers.
Akash
No gratuitous attacks over here Akash. Content and user experience are what matter the most when building a tool. However, the specifications I’m talking about are not coding structures but specifications known as “cahier des charges” in French. These include all scenarios which will improve content delivery and user-experience. Good specs help implementing great websites. Aiming for having a great code while maximising user experience and content is the best way of building a website IMHO.
Validated code does not stay validated all the time because of the way a site’s content is added. However, the best way to do a job is to aim for maximising all the parts of the specifications be they user oriented or in coding structures.
Cheers.
Nice article Sachin.
I’m no pro in the field, but the points you’ve mentioned could be used as stepping stones for “re-working” the website.
Hope that the people concerned with the website do improve it in the future.
Thanks Chaya, the aim is really to point out the lack of investment that major Mauritian companies have in their online presence. What they don’t think about is that the web is now the first contact that they have with prospective clients, partners or employees.
Far above the issues concerning user-friendlness, compatibility or whatsoever, MBC has a severe identity problem for it is totally non-existent!! Perhaps, it should be their first priority, even before hoping to grasp the power and presence the Internet has to offer to this old jalopy of a broadcasting channel.
Exactly one of my points. Thanks for emphasising on this. Websites and Internet reputation go hand in hand with a clearly defined marketing and commercial line.
@Sachin
– I didn’t meant to recreate something like wordpress. This is IMPOSSIBLE lol! I meant for the theme. Instead of using a theme which 1000 of people are already using, would have been better to take a nake core theme and work from it. (Originality and more open to customisation).
Got me wrong
Well… It takes time. Maybe it would have taken the “website integrator” about 2 months to make it ready.
Now maybe the guy who mounted the mbc site had very less time to make it and that is why he customised a ready made theme. (For the fact I worked on this theme, Video Element, for a client in November. Took about 7 days to fully customise and make it look totally different than the original one including optimisation).
.-= Kurt Avish´s last blog ..Tips to be a successful freelancer job seeker on the web =-.
Sorry for the late reply. I think that you are really putting your finger on one important thing.
The Web has evolved and now there are different specialisation angles in it going from the project manager depending on the speciality (site design, SAAS, SOA, Webservices, Web application) to the website integrator whose role is to simply create the CSS and make it work along with the code by maximising browser compatibility.
This is what drives more complexity in web design projects nowadays.
Thanks for your appreciation Jacques.
@kurtavish
Care to give out the link to your client’s website? Or is it top secret stuff?
Si to ti ask moi sa avant to fer site MBC, wai mo ti pu show you, mai bon la impe bez
Pu impe coment dir p al donn toi ban ideas pu amelior site mbc lol. (mo creveur mo cone 
) (Joking). Mai bon sorry I can’t share this with you for reasons that you know. Mai si to search to pu gagne li.. Un private companie pu ads sa.
(Hope you don’t mind). And yes, web designers are really “mean” 
(I know you must be saying that about me to yourself). Cheers
Just does not want our client’s site to have look alikes
@kurtavish
That’s what I thought. Aller, pa fatigue twa. Lol.
Pa traka. Pan fatigue moi sa lol. Very busy acoz sa mo pan gagn reply earlier. A+
Two words to sum up the MBC’s Website = #Epic Fail
@Kurtavish
Why am I not surprised?? Lol..
A+
@Adam Woozeer
It’s funny but I was thinking the exact same thing about your portfolio (http://www.woozeer.com/portfolio) – plenty of categories but nothing in it. Kinda like your head.
People, please! Can we stop the personal attacks here. It’s not in my policy to shut down comments except in extreme cases. Cheers.
@Akash I am not the one that uses CMS and take credit of ones work , I am not the one that comments are being thrown to , I am not the one blowing my own trumpet , I am not the one that spams users …
I dont have time to update my own website , perhaps I should have chosen a flash template just like you did to edit on the fly? http://www.akashcallikan.com/News/news.xml
@Adam Woozeer
Whatever you say dude. I won’t demean myself arguing with people like u as from now on.
Cheers.