Heirarchy | Neufang

I paid my cell phone bill today. As I logged into the Verizon wireless site, I was bombarded their heirarchy. This huge laptop overtook my screen and screamed, "Hey! Check this out!" Well OK, so that one was obvious, and it eventually went away to reveal the actual website. So they really want me to look at that laptop, which is supposed to represent how easy their site is to use now; the new "My Verizon". Even after the pop-up disappeared, it was still there, large and in charge of the website. Well, that's what they claim. Let me examine their heirarchy.

Right next to that is the form to log in. They obviously don't want people to forget to pay their bill and check to see how long before they're eligible for an upgrade.

After that the red navigation bar grabs my attention, pulling me straight across to see all of the features their website offers. They then have a bit of red right above that telling me that I can get free-overnight shipping, and then next to that I find that I can sign my business up for Verizon also. How convenient.

Only then is my eye free to wander around the bottom of the page where I can find even more ways to give them my money. But oh, what a deal it is. And look, a clock! I must be running out of time, I better jump on that.

If I make through the homepage long enough to scroll down, I will find myself assured that they have the largest 3G coverage (once again. Oh, that trouble making map). And blah, blah, legal stuff, blah, blah, stocks, blah, "You're safe to use your credit card here."

Good heirarchy. Great marketing. Is time for my upgrade yet?

So all in all, I think the new website is pretty good. Easy to use. Definitely tempting me to buy more stuff and services. Only after I did this whole tour did I realize that I skipped right over the "account actions" container. It's filled with calming blue links in this sea of exciting red. Maybe they did that intentionally, but there is an option to pay my bill there so I don't understand why they don't draw more attention to it. That is possibly the only thing I would fix.