How could the ICAS website (www.icas.org.uk) be improved?

ICAS was the world’s first professional accounting body and is still one of the world’s main accounting institutes; therefore it is extremely important that its website should be welcoming and user-friendly. However, after visiting this website it became obvious that a number of problems existed and that there is plenty of room for improvement. Such improvements will now be considered.

On first impressions, the ICAS website appears to be unwelcoming, bland and pretentious. As with most situations in life, first impressions are vital and so I would recommend that ICAS should focus their attention on improving the aesthetics of the homepage in particular. This is a fairly straightforward task which could reap huge benefits as it will entice more people to continue looking through the website, thus enhancing their reputation and attracting more students.

The website allows visitors to subscribe to RSS feeds which are a useful way of providing up-to-date information but there appears to be problems with this service. Firstly, this service could be improved by giving details of how to subscribe to the feeds as people who wish to use the service may be deterred by the lack of guidance on the matter. Additionally, the feeds should be made more frequent to ensure that subscribers are being provided with information on a regular basis and this will also prevent them missing out on information which they believe to be important.

Furthermore, there is a vast amount of information contained on the homepage, particularly down the left hand side column. This is yet another issue likely to deter people from viewing the website in more detail. In order to improve the situation ICAS should consider condensing the links into a more manageable number. It would also be useful to use a larger font size to make the links more user-friendly and easier to identify.

As previously mentioned, the website appears to be pretentious and although it is easy to understand that an organisation like ICAS would wish to appear professional they could do this in a more relaxed manner. For example, their English and Welsh counterparts, the ICAEW, have successfully created a website which looks professional but which lacks the arrogance of the ICAS website. This has been achieved through injecting both colour and life into the website and highlighting different key areas through the use of different colours. Areas for members and students have been created on the homepage which clearly illustrate the range of services available. The lack of such areas is one of the main criticisms of the ICAS website because these are the people who are likely to be the most frequent visitors to the site yet they are expected to look for a small link at the side of the page and are then directed to a different page. This is a poor way to treat your most important customers and so ICAS could improve the website by considering the format used by ICAEW.

A further problem which became apparent when using the ICAS website is that it is difficult to navigate around the site and this is yet another factor which makes using the website an unpleasant experience. This situation could be improved by adding a site map to the website as this would help people to find everything they were looking for and would prevent users feeling frustrated when they have to trawl through numerous pages to find the required information.

In conclusion, a number of improvements need to be made to this website but the most important issue is undoubtedly improving the homepage to make it more welcoming for visitors.