What is it with those ridiculously complicated police test training programs/websites ? Part 1

December 8, 2008

Okay so the other day I was browsing through some online police test preparation websites and it occurred to me that these sites are NOT taking advantage of the wonders that the internet has to offer in
terms of programming and application development. I will not disclose which website in particular that had me awestruck (in a negative way) when I was navigating through their police test training materials,
but let’s just say they are a “top” player in the online police test prep course field. I’m not a very claustrophobic person in general, but that all changed when I started browsing through their site and training materials.

Yes, tonnes and tonnes of content within a site is an amazing way to get your site optimized in search engines, but why not take a look at the site from a customers point of view? A person that is seriously considering various online police test prep courses will, quite frankly, get scared off when they are bombarded by pages and pages of text and content. When it comes to effective web-based training courses, simple is always better! A “text jungle” will only add to frustration on behalf of the potential customer who wants to learn about the course. Why? well.. maybe because they don’t know where to start once they are on a website looking for answers. Here’s an example. “Click here to start your tour of our course….. now click here to tell us what country you are from….. now click here to tell us this…. now click here to tell us that…..” There’s simply way too much clicking and scrolling for the visitor. People just don’t have as much patience as they used to because there are other sites that offer the same stuff as the top dogs, but with a much simpler feel that actually gives hope for the customer. Tours should be straight forward and every part of the tour should be easy to access instantly. However, if you’ve already clicked and scrolled through 25 different sections and you want to go back to see he 5th section again, it shouldn’t be an hour long process. And that is just one example of how big players in the industry are scaring customers off.