Nate Klaiber

Failed Re-Design: Dover Phila Federal Credit Union

When it comes to doing banking online, I am very particular and cautious about the websites I use. For the most part, I don’t need to be sold on the bank — I am usually already a member and looking to achieve several tasks:

• Manage my accounts (checkings, savings, loans)
• Pay bills
• Order checks
• Apply for a loan
• Check rates and compare options
• Contact a representative or specific department

I have used Chase Online Services and found them to be painless and intuitive, getting out of my way and letting me achieve the tasks I need to achieve. Now, I also do banking with our local Credit Union. They have never had a user-friendly site — but it was bearable. To manage my Visa I logged into their external vendor. To manage my savings, checking, and loans I logged into their external vendor. To order checks I logged into their external vendor. To apply for a loan, I simply visited the office and applied in person (see comments below). I didn’t have to spend much time on their site, just had to have the right bookmarks to get where I needed to be.

The Dover Phila Federal Credit Union recently re-launched their website and I would chalk it up as another failed re-design.

Visually

Normally this isn’t an aspect I would be too picky about. However, the over-use (and poor use) of shadows under every graphical word is a bit sore on the eyes. I imagine they were going for the web 2.0 fade that everyone seems to have used. Also, they have a large rotating banner ad that, normally, would be easy to just glance over. Their navigation is placed above and below — with no way to stop the animation or avoid it (unless I disable via the browser). As I look around, everything seems to be embedded into an image — including their links at the bottom for privacy policy, home-page, and NCUA. Overall, the site has a much darker feel to it than the previous site. Not much clean separation or whitespace. The typography is very plain. Overall a very bland feel. Again, these are my personal feelings. I am not much for the color scheme. I like something a little more upbeat and vibrant like I have found when dealing with Chase, National City, and other Credit Card sites.

Structure and IA

The structure did not have a major shift from the previous design. They don’t have much content for their actual site. They have the basic About Us, Products and Services (what we have to offer), and Contact Us. I appreciate that the main links I use are all placed across the top accordingly. The OnLine-OnTime ™ link is there for me to immediately get to my online banking, Our Rates are listed for a quick check of rates, and Manage Accounts is simply an array of links to send you to all of the third party applications to manage your account, manage your visa, manage your bill pay, and order checks. Thankfully these are placed directly at the top so I don't have to spend much time on the actual site.

Usability

This site only has one form — but it is a major one in that it is the process of applying for a loan. One look at this form forced me to close the browser and apply at the local branch. After the rest of the website, I failed to trust this process with my secure information. The form is poorly organized and constructed. No use of fieldset, legend, or label. Left aligned field labels. Use of drop-downs for state fields. When you get to the point about coapplicant, all coapplicant information is present regardless of if you choose ‘no’ for the field. One click of the submit button takes you to a CGI Application Error page letting you know of the errors. The required fields are not marked or otherwise specified before clicking the submit button, which you will then have to hit your browsers back button to correct the specified errors. This form is not user-friendly by any means, and becomes a nuisance as you actually try to submit the loan. Once submitted — no clear indication is given as to what will happen (Do I call? Will they call? How do I proceed?).

Under the hood

This was the scariest (and most disappointing) part of it all. Working with a Transitional doctype, tables, font tags galore, Dreamweaver image rollovers and inline Javascript, and the ever secure and impassible — disable right-click script (People really use these and think they work?). Without the use of Javascript, virtually every menu is rendered useless. Images are also required to navigate the site accordingly (obtrusive navigation links). I guess I can’t say they are using all deprecated tags since it is a trans doctype — but boy does it look horrendous under the hood — take a peek for yourself (but be warned).

Concluding Thoughts

Personally, I feel bad that somebody paid money for a product like this. I feel that there is no excuse to build a website like that anymore — even with tools like Dreamweaver. I understand most of this is code spit out by the WYSIWYG — and not to the fault of Dreamweaver — this is due to ignorant developers. The website is an inaccessible mess and lacks any sort of design direction. I don’t blame this on the Credit Union — they simply took the advice and direction of Prestige Creative Marketing and felt they were going to get a decent product and an upgrade to their website. Unfortunately, this re-design took them backwards — worse than what they had before.

Website:

Dover Phila Federal Credit Union

Developers:

Prestige Creative Marketing