So how have East Coast drivers learned the navigational habit of moving right to let faster drivers pass on the left? Is it a cultural phenomenon? Or is it the signs along the highways saying, “Slower drivers move to right lanes?” Is that all it takes? Have you ever really noticed all of the signs on highways? There are tons of them. Some tell truckers to avoid the left lanes. Others tell you how fast you should go. Still more indicate where exits will lead and how many miles you’ve gone. Directional signs tell you whether the exit road goes north or south, east or west.  Or toward what town.

As I drove from Boston to New Hampshire to Maine and back again, I started thinking of highways as a big Web page, and exits as calls to action (yeah, call me a Web content geek). The highway signs were equivalent to Web navigational aids—telling me where I was along my journey, how cautious I should be (e.g.,”road work next 6 miles”), where I could go from a certain point, how far my destination was, etc. And I wondered, if we create Web pages with navigational aids like highway signs, how much more effective would they be? What can Web content strategists learn from the navigational aids that have been supporting the world’s highway systems for decades? Should we adopt standard symbols (think Stop signs or Railroad Crossing icons) so that Web audiences learn a common visual language for navigating a content journey?

What do you think? How do you help your audience navigate the Web journey you offer them?

BRAVO

The microsite is the online equivalent of the car itself—small, thoughtfully organized, well designed, and fun.

Visitors can view the site accompanied by a John Cleese-esque narrator and/or with letterbox subtitles, making it suitable for both home and office viewing. It opens in a garage with the arrival of a pair of Smart Fortwos. The user can continue in a linear manner through the various chapters—comfort, safety, space, fuel economy, and features—or experience it chapter by chapter through tabs at the top of the page. Regardless of which method one chooses, the scene transitions are especially slick as the site flows from one chapter to the next with lateral screen wipes from scene to scene.

The quiz elements and visuals are surprising at times, and captivating enough to inspire multiple viewings. In addition, the entire experience runs just a few minutes, even if viewed through to its entirety from start to finish.

Extra credit goes to the production team for the voiceover interruptions in which the narrator takes a call and orders tea or lunch when the screen is left idle.

TRY AGAIN

The major shortcomings of the site, to the extent that these can be characterized as such, are its regionality—the call to action to arrange a test drive or request a brochure only apply to U.K. residents—and the fact that it lacks the requisite social media tags to give it additional viral impact. Ideally, the site would have been set up to reconfigure the final call to action and sub links based on the IP address of its viewer, so that North American buyers, for example, could also request a brochure or set up a test drive. With no additional tweaks, the site would work as is for English-speaking countries, and it would have been relatively easy, given the voice over/letter box format, to translate the experience into additional languages.

Further, while the site has made the rounds on various automotive message boards and blogs, it could have had wider reach if it was set up for easy social tags like Digg, Delicious, and Facebook.

Overall, the site hits a bull’s-eye for its target demographic, leaves a striking impression of how far off base some of these misconceptions are about the Smart Fortwo, and reinforces the brand voice for Smart.