Canada Post's New Website – Now with 50% Less Usability!

(An open letter to Canada Post)

As a designer and information architect, I'm intensely disappointed to see the new Canada Post website.

In 2002 Canada Post redesigned their site for the better. Around that time, some information architects were hired to state the obvious - that the top three reasons people visit the postal service online are to:

• Track a package
  
• Find a postal code
  
• Find a post office
  

And, just like that, those options floated to the homepage, accessible as part of the top navigation, and all was right in the world.

Today, you have buried that which people use most often, one more level deep. Now, instead of two clicks to get to the postal code search (Language Selection, then Postal Code Search) there are three clicks! That's 50% longer a path to get value from your visit to http://canadapost.com....

Moreover, the primary link of only four links on the homepage leads to a blurb about the redesign itself. It would seem to me that "the fact that the site has been redesigned" is not a core concern of the average Canadian when dealing with the postal service, but finding a postal code or tracking a package is.

Please consider consulting a usability expert to repair the damage done to our national postal service's website.

Cheers,
Steven Luscher, BDes, R.G.D., MGDC