Weekly Post 4: 10/4/2021-10/10/2021

The overall design for Apple is clean and straightforward, giving the customers a professional feel when they look up Apple Plan Your Visit FAQs. Immediately the customer can easily read the fonts as it is big enough for one to sit back and be comfortable. The customer can instantly tell that the bolded fonts are the questions and below them are the answers. This simple but often overlooked design choice allows users to quickly understand that "A" is for answers and "Q" is for queries. This design choice also allows users to find information or questions relevant to them at a glance.

On the right-hand side, the customer can search for a topic they may be searching for. Moreover, once you click on the topic you will automatically move to a section of questions that are relevant to said topic. Clicking on the topic also shows you a subheading of the same name from the topic list at the beginning of the page, letting the customer know they are at the right place even if they are just scrolling down rather than clicking the topic in the topic list. Another hint for the customer is a dashed line between each topic to see where a topic ends or begins.

Apple's answers to the questions also include links which provide more information similar to that being addressed in the response if a user hasn't found what they're looking for. The downside of the answers from the Apple Plan your Visit FAQ is that some of the answer lengths are a bit too long to the point where a customer wouldn't want to go through the trouble of reading it all. Breaking down the answers would help as some of the questions not only ask one but multiple questions. Rather than giving a long and convoluted answer to a question, it would be best to break it into smaller segments as users may not need as much jargon if their issue is relatively simple. It also shows how the answer is a position that may look like the answer is wordy when it is not. For example on the left side of the page there is the subheading Apple should move into the center so that the question may be underneath. A longer-looking page is better than having answers look wordy and causing the customer to lose interest. This change would also make the user use the choose a topic tool more often.

I believe that a 1:1 inquiry would help the customers find solutions if they have queries that are still left unanswered. Whether they can send a message or need to call a customer representative, Apple will be able to get feedback and have the opportunity to gather more common questions from customers to update their FAQs. What is very ineffective is where they have chosen to place their customer service number. Because the number is not bolded or set apart, customers may have to do a little more searching around the page than necessary. As one's goal should be to improve our customers' quality of life experience, such small touches can go a long way to making a page or site feel intuitive. Despite being a world-renowned tech company, it is not beyond Apple’s web designers to need to tweak certain aspects of their pages to provide a better experience for customers.