Europeana User Inexperience

I hate to wag a finger and say "tsk tsk ." Well, I don't really hate to but I know people hate a blabber-mouth-know-it-all-busy-body.  So, I try to limit it as much as possible.  HOWEVER, when I saw this article about the crashing of the new Europeana Web site, I felt I had no choice.

I love the Europeans. A few weeks ago when I was in Europe on a brief trip, they were very nice to me. But, it's not just me that loves the Europeans. Lots of people love the Europeans. But, especially, the Europeans love the Europeans. So, the Europeans should have known that if they put up a Web site about The Europeans, that lots of people would want to go look at it. That's just Lisa's common sense Web site visitor analysis.

But, let's push common sense aside and be slightly more scientific. One of the cornerstones of sound Web Operations is Web Measurement.  From where we sit, Web Measurement has three basic components:

• Web Usability Program
• Strategic Business Metrics
• Web Analytics

With all due respect, The Europeans messed up here by not attending proactively to arenas of Web Usability and some of the basic aspects of  Web Analytics. Simply put, they could have found out what kind of interest the world might have in the Europeana Web site by conducting some basic focus groups, a questionnaire perhaps, asking stray Europeans on the street and some Americans too--since, American Web-clicking seemed to have contributed to the servers crashing. Then they wouldn't have been so surprised at what happened on their servers, maybe.

You know, Europeans have those good French Fries with mayonnaise. I would have gone to a focus group about Europeana if they served French Fries with mayonnaise or something else European like wine, or small servings of tasty and sexy looking food on nice plates.

After finding out that lots of people would go to the Web site to download the Mona Lisa, they should have then thought about how many hits per hour their Web network and server infrastructure was going to have to support and built accordingly. This didn't happen. Or, maybe it happened and they didn't do a good job .

I'm not going to comment on the user experience of the Europeana Web site itself because, at this writing, I can't get on the Web site because it's down. But it seems to me that being able to get on the Web site would be a Web Usability fundamental. Call me crazy.

If I seem a little harsh, I'm sorry. But, I must say that I feel a little betrayed. This, from the place where you can take a train from top to bottom on a single ticket? This, from the place where people wear tailored clothes? This from the place of superior, moody films? This from the land of chocolate truffles!

This, from the land of The Europeans?

Tsk- Tsk.