If you have kids, you know its that time of year to pre-order your child’s school yearbook. And, most likely, the year book provider is Jostens, www.JostensYearbooks.com. I’ve known Jostens for 30+ years and have fond memories of its products.
Websites and Mobile –
On the surface, the Josten’s Website is fine if you are using a desktop computer. I started my journey to order yearbooks on my iPhone and quickly ascertained that shopping via that channel was next to impossible. So, I launched the site on my computer.
I have two kids in different levels at the same school. For whatever reason, I could not add my second child to the Josten’s site and select a yearbook different than the first child. I would expect that type of functionality in 2001, but not in 2011. In fairness, I am using a Mac – maybe that’s the issue??
So, after messing with the site for more than 20 minutes, I deleted my second yearbook order and ended up doing each order, one at a time. As luck would have it, when I deleted the second yearbook, I had to re-key all the data pertinent to the first yearbook. Order complete. Whew!
For the second child, I had to change the school division (she’s in a different grade/level) which was far from intuitive. After that, somehow the shopping cart had two entries for my second child. So, I deleted the second entry. After the refresh, my information on the first entry was wiped clean. Once again, I typed in her name and information. Entered my credit card information for the second time within the hour and order complete.
Nice experience? Not really. I doubt any novice PC or Mac user would have tolerated my experience. Next time, I will opt for Josten’s more expensive channel by ordering via the 800# or filling out a paper form.
I point all this out not to necessarily drag Josten’s through the mud (they are a great company), but rather highlight an issue with many e-commerce and mobile commerce sites. User experience is paramount to extending your brand across all channels. If you have the same challenges as my experience above, perhaps no experience is better than a bad one?? Perception is reality in the eyes of the end-user.
