Verizon : Making an example effective

Case study lists in page content brings them more effectively to visitors’ attention.

The Site

US telecoms provider Verizon has an eight-section Corporate Responsibility (CR) mini-site within the About Verizon area of its website. The CR home page and four of the sections use a Making Connections panel in the right-hand navigation bar to draw attention to news items or short case studies related to page content.

The full list of 19 Making Connections topics is given on the home page, but thereafter a selection only is presented based on the section or sub-section to which it relates. Clicking on an item opens the story in a smaller pop-up window which has simple internal ‘next/back’ navigation for multiple-page stories and a dropdown menu of all the Making Connections topics.

The Takeaway

Although case studies are a regular feature of CR content on company websites they are often undercapitalised or undersold by being lumped together as a discrete menu heading. By integrating its Making Connections menus into page content Verizon brings the stories – and its sense of pride in them – much more immediately to visitors’ attention.

Selective use of the limited collection to match menu panels to individual page content is both a navigational service to the visitor – the list has been filtered for you – and a subliminal sign of the company’s enthusiasm for what it is doing. ‘Look at what we’ve achieved,’ it says, rather than ‘If you’re interested, browse through our case studies’.

First published on 30 August, 2005