Henry Ford presented the usability analysis for their Web site.  They used three tools for their assessment – Heuristic analysis (having experts look at the site and make recommendations, this time by Nielsen-Norman Group), Focus Groups and crazyegg.com.

• Things should be where people expect them to be – search in upper right, for instance
• Main navigation should be consistent and persistent throughout the site
• A lot of analysis presented specifically about the find a physician function (Analysis was much broader, but this is what was presented)
• Site visitors feel the need to fill out every available field.  “if I knew his last name, I wouldn’t need to be searching for a new doctor”
• People didn’t know that their search netted results if they appeared “below the fold”.
• No one reads directions at the top of the page.
• People cared about age, gender, experience, specialty, so they put much of this information in the search results and physician profiles.  Thumbnail photos on search results.  Profile has date when the physician completed medical school.
• Content was too technical/clinical – they had to “dumb it down”

The results have been very successful.  They spent “well into 5-figures” on the usability assessment component – more than the subsequent redesign.  There was a lot of discussion about the availability of less expensive options and there certainly are, but a very nice presentation of both the principles and application for organizations that have the resources to do it in this way.