.net is really good so I don’t want it to seem that this blog is full of  rants about it. This entry is meant to be seen as constructive criticism. On the positive side, it shows that we are paying attention.

However, the expert panels are often quite annoying. Contestants in the weekly challenge tend to be reasonably new web designers who want to get their names known, unsurprisingly. The “expert” judges get their names known, with an “expert” tag attached, which gives them all the publicity adavantage that the challengers get, plus extra kudos. And sometimes, one suspects that they are not so expert after all.

However, it is the whole idea of the expert panel that is the most dubious part of the exercise. For most sites, appealing to experts is of little value. The general public is not concerned about the issues that concern web designers.

As a rule, the internet-browsing public don’t care if the site fits the current web fashions. They don’t care about much except whether a site does what it is supposed to. If they want information, they expect it to turn up in a readable and usable form.  If they want to buy goods online, they expect the process of finding what they want, working out the cost and how to pay and arranging delivery to be straightforward, fast and secure. They will just give up and not purchase anything if it seems like more trouble than going to the shops. So why get experts to judge the user interface of an e-commerce site? Stop a dozen people at random. Choose teenagers, students, pensioners, cleaners, factory workers, bar staff and office workers rather than “experts” and it will be obvious what e-commerce sites work