Best Practice examples: HTML reporting

30 jan 2007

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In our last newsletter we discussed the pros and cons of online reports. This week we show three best practice examples of HTML reports, which all make use of the unique possibilities the internet has to offer.

Storytelling versus annual accounts

We distinguish roughly two types of HTML reports:

Annual accounts: defined as a rather ‘sec‘ overview of the management report and financial statements
Corporate stories: the company not only focuses on the financials and the management report, but it includes corporate branding elements as well (see for example the Deutsche Post annual report).

Some professionals expect corporate HTML stories to disappear. They believe the corporate website should tell this story rather than the annual report. Once XBRL comes standard, this might very well be the case.

What do users want?

In our daily practice we often conduct user research on corporate websites and HTML reports. We distinguish three broad user needs in the field of online reporting:

Thorough examination of relevant information. This implies the possibility to either print information directly or download a PDF document.
Quick scan; looking for background info, clicking through the report, watching a video or a webcast etc.
Data analysis; either with interactive charts or in Excel.

An HTML report offers the possibility to meet all these user needs. It offers possibilities for printing, downloading (personalised) reports, adding multimedia, interactive tools and so on. Below we provide you with some best practice examples:

Best Practices: personalised reporting:

Deutsche Post personal online report: this feature enables visitors to select their preferred chapters online, so they do not have to read through information they do not want.