Online supermarket that makes financial sense

Finding the best price for a product can be hard work, even more so if you’re dealing with financial products where a range of companies offer similar deals. Moneysupermarket helps overcome this hurdle by providing price comparison information across eight subjects. Indeed, its homepage boasts: “One search for cards, loans, insurance, mobiles and more.”

The homepage eases the user in by clearly labelling the eight areas covered, from money to mobiles to motoring and broadband.

Using clean icons and simple everyday language means users are guided to the right section easily, without being overwhelmed. A minor issue, but one that is easily fixed, is that some of the navigation tabs at the top don’t match the areas shown on the homepage, such as “utilities” vs “gas and electricity”. Consistency is important in improving the learnability of the site as well as for search engine optimisation (SEO).

When dealing with such a complex subject matter as financial products, sites should provide help so users are able to make an informed choice. Moneysupermarket does this really well with lots of guides and an “Article library” full of informative and educational material simplifying complicated concepts.

These articles and guides aren’t just good for SEO but also promote relevant site features and products by linking to them, a fine example of good practice.

The site also encourages user collaboration by providing discussion forums and highlighting the most active in the “Forum spotlight” and “Hot topics” features.
However, it is surprising that there is no search facility on this site. Given that about 50% of the population finds information by searching for it, Moneysupermarket seems to be missing a trick.

That apart, Moneysupermarket provides a fairly easy to use website to match its worthwhile proposition. And let’s face it, when dealing with things like ISAs and insurance, we need all the help we can get.

 

Review conducted by Mrudula Kodali, user experience consultant at Webcredible