Novartis : Relating to contacts

Customised links enhance a leading resource.

The Site

Novartis, a Switzerland-based pharmaceuticals company, adds tailored content links to its categorised contact page.

Novartis includes ‘contact’ as an option in its universal utilities string at top left of pages. This opens a contact page with tabs for five categories of enquiry: General, Investors, Media, Research and Corporate Citizenship. Each launches a customised set of details in the main content area of the page.

Related links are shown to the right of the page, below the search field. These are tailored to the tabs. So, for example, Investors has a share price panel, Event Calendar, which shows a featured date and a link to the calendar, and Stay Connected, three links for, respectively, e-mail alerts, newsfeeds and Twitter; Media has About Novartis (‘Learn more about our company’), Latest news (links to the most recent press release and the press room) and Stay Connected.

The Takeaway

Novartis’ contact page is one of the most useful and best executed resources on the corporate web. The simple tabbing system enhances ‘findability’ and navigation, and is allied to information that is a mix of immediate options and a portal to more detail and related content.

In the latter context, one of the page’s more unusual features is the tailoring of the right-hand related links to the tab categories. While this is a classic illustration of related linking – matching the selection to the current page – it is notable in relation to the use of tabbing, which generally does not change elements outside the main content display. It is also rarely seen on utility pages but acts here in a similar fashion to FAQs, allowing Novartis to push enquirers to site content and services as an alternative port of call.

First published on 30 June, 2009