Cook’s Illustrated wins IMR‘s Editor’s Choice Award for Best Cooking Subscription Website
Bristol, RI – November 17, 2004 – With the holidays fast approaching, IMR‘s Usability Expert Roxanne O’Connell thought it would be suitable and enjoyable to navigate cooking websites. She was determined to find out how a publication could manage to charge money for something that is abundantly offered for free on the Internet.
For example, Google provides 17 million results for cooking, many of which are free. So how does one cooking magazine differentiate itself from the others? O’Connell looked at over 20 cooking magazine websites, including Better Homes and Gardens, Southern Living, Cooking Light, Martha Stewart Living and Food and Wine and chose Cook’s Illustrated as number one.
O’Connell looked at 10 usability factors to determine CooksIllustrated.com as the winner. Among the key metrics studied were affordance, brand integrity, strategic intent, and organization. In this Website Design critique, O’Connell outlined 5 website design lessons one can learn from CooksIllustrated.com:
- Using content sampling to help shoppers become buyers of your content.
- Help readers find what they’re looking for.
- Be THE authority in your knowledge domain.
- Order flows—One size does NOT fit all.
- Use Pop-ups appropriately and sparingly.
Credentialed members of the media trade press are encouraged to contact Kim Mateus (Kim@Mequoda.com) for questions, comments and complimentary full access.
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