Avoiding Useful Content with Slick Javascript

The user, a frequent traveler, wanted to find ways to impress his new girlfriend. WhiteTie, a luxury concierge and VIP service, seems to be just the ticket.

To ensure this is what he wanted, he visited the WhiteTie web site and started to look at the What We Offer links in the center of the page, suggesting he learn more by clicking on links with labels like Northwest Airlines, Restaurants, and Hotels.

Like most folks using the web these days, our user had the expectation clicking on the links would bring up a page with more content. However, clicking on the Northwest Airlines link didn’t seem to do anything. He clicked on it multiple times before giving up.

The Northwest Airlines content on WhiteTie.com

The second link, Restaurants, also didn’t behave as he expected. He told us he thought it would display a page describing the restaurants involved and the services WhiteTie offered. Alas, clicking on it just changed the image next to the link and swapped in 4 bullets with surprisingly little real value. (Just what are “other special amenities”, anyways?)

The restaurant content

Clicking on Hotels was the same.

The hotel content

WhiteTie charges a premium for their service. And they’ve spent a bit of it on some fancy javascript to swap out each content. Yet, we can’t help but wonder if their money would’ve been better spent on a set of plain-old HTML pages with some meaty descriptions of their service and its benefits.