Boeing: Ringing in the new

An inexcusable oversight detracts attention from an expensive relaunch.

The Site

Boeing, the world’s leading aircraft manufacturer, relaunched its website last month with a radically different though more conventional new look.

Company information has been consolidated under an About Us heading which now features on the main universal navigation bar. Within its General Information area is a page describing the various functions operating out of its head office in Chicago and their roles within the company, along with biographies of the senior executive leading each. This is accessed from a heading in the left-hand navigation labelled ‘World Headquaters’, a spelling repeated in the breadcrumb trail navigation at the top of the page itself. The page is correctly sub-titled ‘World Headquarters’.

The Takeaway

Boeing has obviously invested a lot of time and money to get its new look off the ground in time for 2006. In doing so, it has brought a more coherent structure to site content and journeys that was much needed, not least in the area of company information. But as ever there is devilry waiting in the detail to undermine the good work.

In the case of the misspelling of ‘headquarters’ the detail is not so obscure and the subject not so peripheral as to excuse the error: revamping the navigation has been central to the project so someone should have been keeping a close eye on the main menus. Letting the ‘blooper’ see the light of the new dawn will not just be a minor embarrassment to the senior executives whose names feature alongside the ‘World Headquaters’ heading when it is brought to their attention. It might also have visitors worrying about whether Boeing’s engineers are trained to the same quality standard. And, Catch 22, thanks to the new navigation, far more of them are likely to notice.

First published on 03 January, 2006