I hate hot spots

Five years ago, it seemed as though every other OEM was using hot spots.  Hot spots allow site designers to graft detailed information onto a high quality vehicle image, often right on the model landing page.  The example below is from Chevrolet, circa late 2007.  Each plus sign reveals its content when moused over – clicking links to a full feature description with text and an image.

I’ve never liked hot spots, mostly because they force the user to hunt for information.  In this Chevy example, that means mousing over twelve distinct hot spots!  It’s also impossible to quickly scan.  The interface may be appropriate for a microsite or experience section, but the primary vehicle research page should not require so much effort to use.  In the past, hot spots have contributed to problems with site navigation (for Chevy and others) as measured by our Manufacturer Website Evaluation Study (MWES).

Although hot spots have faded in popularity, they haven’t disappeared completely – for instance, Mercedes-Benz delivers its vehicle feature descriptions via hot spots.  I do like the way the site includes the category name for each hot spot rather than the uninformative plus signs.  But despite Mercedes-Benz’s improvement in its navigation score during the most recent wave of MWES, I believe it could do even better with a more intuitive interface for model-level information.

Mitsubishi recently redesigned its entire brand website and actually brought the hot spots back!  The overall navigation performed well in MWES (ranked 11 for navigation) but I would still prefer to access vehicle detail without all the clicking!

The top sites for navigation present feature information in a straightforward manner – text and links.  It’s not flashy, but it is effective.

I’ll probably have to suffer through hot spots for years to come, but at least I have other options.

Tagged with: Manufacturers • Usability • Website