Hachette Redesigns Web Site
I am really keen to see how publishers are updating their websites now that we are well into the web 2.0 swell. A tricky point is whether to sell direct. I am for it. But regardless of whether a publisher is ready for that step, they should still put the reader first in their site design. Improving usability is about the details, not the big picture and the big picture, in these cases, is so often clouded by the uncertainty of who your site is for and and what use-case it satisfies.
Hachette has just relaunched their US property. It is clean and airy. They have a browse inside feature and an embedding option via Libre Digital. They have made some excellent choices with layout, features, and navigation.
One feature caught my eye.
Under the consumer resources section, they have included a “Find an Expert” service. It surfaces authors that are experts on topics the a user selects. In the examples I looked at you couldn’t contact the expert in question. Once you found your expert you were simply pointed back to their work. At first I thought this was a speaker-bureau-type service that was freely accessible to the public. Neat. Instead it appears to be an alternate entry point to their author database. Boo. The PW article that announces the site relaunch says this feature is as publicity service. I am confused.
On a different note, Hachette’s fraud notice seems to indicate their authors have been targeted by a phishing scam. That is scary.
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