Lesson 2 Assignment

Goals: Go to the Ford Motor Company Web site's home page. (It's at www.ford.com.) Look at the home page carefully; most of the information you need for this assignment can be found there, or within one click from the home page. Name two specific features on the Web site that support each of the following stakeholders:
1. Press and analysts
2. Stockholders and investors
3. Customers
If you wish to do more, also look at the home pages of General Motors (www.gm.com) and DaimlerChrysler (www.daimlerchrysler.com). Write a couple of sentences about which one of the three home pages you like best, and why.

1. Press and analysts
On top navbar: Good Works: links to page about community programs, environmental initiatives, and awards received
on top navbar: Company: links to page with stock statistics, company news, press releases, etc.
2. Stockholders and investors
from top navbar: the Heritage and Innovation buttons, located right next to each other!
Heritage links to a page about the company's history and 100th's anniversary (indicating the company's stability)
Innovation links to a page with info about new developments in safety, fuel technology, etc.
3. Customers
Window on homepage: "Know what you're looking for? Pick one of our brands"
Window on homepage: "Not sure what car or truck you want? Browse all our brands"

At a 800x600 screen resolution, I didn't need to scroll down to see any of these features.

The Chrysler website:
The homepage has a few car photos and a 4-item navbar on each side (one in German, the other English). The items are: Corporate Information/News, Products, Careers, Media Services. So you can quickly decide what area you want. On the rest of the pages, there are 10 choices. They don't have a browse option for the car models, which I liked on the Ford site.

The GM website:
GM has a graphical header and three columns below it with the headings: The Company, Automotive, Beyond Automotive. There is a list of more specific topics under each of these broad headings, so you can decide exactly what you want before leaving the homepage. If you click on Vehicle Shopping, you go to Vehicle Advisor, which asks you many car-related questions and recommends some models for you.

On the Ford website, to get to the same sort of information, you click on "Browse our cars" on the homepage, then pick Shopping Advice on the next screen, then on the next screen you have a choice of articles to read. For a quick fun way to pick a car type (AND for getting at information quickly in general), I prefer the GM site, but for more in-depth research and serious car shopping, I prefer the Ford site.