David Bowen commentaries

In his regular columns for the Financial Times and ft.com, senior consultant David Bowen has pursued themes ranged from customer relationship management and career marketing to ‘ethical’ retailing and royal family sites. His collected Financial Times and ft.com columns from January 2001 onward are indexed by theme and available for viewing on this site.

You can access articles directly by selecting a link below.

  • Why accessibility is an opportunity to make improvements Organisations are being driven by legislation to make their web sites more easily accessible to people with disabilities. This can lead them to take a fresh look at the basics of usability, to the benefit of all users. But imaginative thinking will be nee
  • Why stock exchanges have more to gain from borrowing Taken as a group, the world’s stock exchanges could mount a pretty impressive website. But the parts will remain considerably less formidable than the whole until they start taking lessons from one another.
  • Why small charities and lobby groups need to raise their sites As the web matures the big NGOs (non-governmental organisations) are pushing up the thresholds of credibility and visibility for small and medium-sized charities and lobby groups. Unless they can raise their efforts they are in danger of losing their worl
  • How hypercubes could hasten more searchable websites While the stock market spotlight plays on Google and other public search engines, internal search devices are pretty much neglected, judged on the extraordinary number that simply don’t work. An approach developed for e-commerce sites could have a wider
  • Where to check out best practice in the art of the possible The more possibilities the web opens up as a medium, the greater the complexities it presents in managing a website’s effectiveness. Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the financial services sector, where over the past two years banks have been
  • Why a fragmented, rickety infrastructure undermines Europe online The European Union website offers information in 14 more languages than the United Nations’ attempts. But its usefulness to citizens is deeply flawed by technical and organisational issues that make a cautionary lesson for any content-rich or multinatio
  • How carmakers have slipped out of the fast lane Direct sales to customers seemed a natural online progression for a car industry renowned for its relentless pursuit of innovation and efficiency. But after setting off down that road, most have stalled or headed in another direction.
  • Why it promises to be a silly season in the online bookshops As the busiest time of year arrives for online retailers there are signs that some big names on the web are struggling with the effectiveness of their sites. Common sense and attention to detail are not always on display.
  • What the Church can teach us about the spirit of a website Just as the eyes are the gateway to the soul, so gazing into an organisation’s website reveals a lot about its true state. No more so at the moment than in the way the Christian churches’ turbulent priests are baring their inner selves in the online p
  • How to put together a corporate site without it falling apart Companies use their websites for a range of objectives from selling to reputation management. Deciding what goals to pursue should command serious attention from the policymakers. But putting even the basic elements in place quickly becomes a complex affa

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