Sorry, No Yoga Today

I had my friend Jeanne go to www.bikramyogachelsea.com and told her I wanted her to take a class. Jeanne is very fast on the computer so I had to ask her to slow down from time to time and take the best notes I could.

At the above url, one sees the name, bikram yoga, in giant letters on a clean white background with the school’s peaceful-looking logo beneath it. In bright orange letters next to that were two words, "Chelsea" and "Park Slope." She immediately clicked on Chelsea because we were in Manhattan, but I wondered why bikram yoga Chelsea even had a choice between Chelsea and Park Slope.

Upon clicking "Chelsea" another page appeared with the same clean white look and beautiful logo. It said bikram yoga Chelsea at the top. Ok, good, we're there. Beneath that were several attractive orange tabs. Jeanne kept looking for a place to “register.” I wondered why she didn’t simply click the tabs marked "location" or "schedule." But this was her search, not mine.

Not liking any of the tabs, she quickly scanned a lengthy paragraph beneath them with the headline, “Welcome! What is Bikram Yoga?” She began to mutter now about where to register. She said she didn’t know if just anyone could take a class or if you had to join something first. “Ah,” I said and continued to watch.

She then scrolled to the bottom of the page where there were no less than 14 links in tiny type. She had no patience with these so she went back to the top tabs and clicked on a one called “general info.” Here there was a set of bullet points with advice such as “drink plenty of water” and “bring a towel.” Beneath that was a lot more copy about the benefits of bikram yoga. But not what Jeanne was looking for. She started to grumble at this point and clicked on another tab, "faqs."

This was a very copy heavy page with info on what to wear, what to bring, and tons of verbiage on the benefits of bikram yoga. She was clearly frustrated by now and went to “contact us,” another tab. This made her really upset –I was starting to get upset also!— because we saw the word “comments” above a huge form to fill out. It was the school’s attempt to capture data and students’ opinions. At "contact us" they were asking for info from Jeanne—rather than offering to give Jeanne info!

At this point, she went back to “home,” thinking maybe she’d missed something there. But again not finding what she wanted, she clicked on the “rates” tab — thinking that perhaps along with a price they’d tell her how to sign up. This was a really aggravating page because it merely told about corporate rates. Definitely not what she was looking for!

Next, she clicked on the “schedule” tab, thinking she could sign up for a class there. I was sure this would help. But this page, though pretty, merely sported a calendar with the days of the week running across the top and the times of day down the side. Whenever there was a class that beautiful logo appeared in the corresponding box. So while it told when classes were going on, it didn’t tell how to take one.

Net she clicked “location.” The only other two tabs left were “store” and “postures” – and it clearly wouldn’t be one of those. "Location" had a map and address for the Chelsea location and a phone number in small type midway down the page. Pay dirt! Jeanne said that to take the class, she’d just have to call.

“This is a really bad web site,” she said. “Pretty to look at-- but bad.” After looking at six pages, she never found out how to take a class—just a phone number, hardly visible, that she could call to ask.

Just for fun, she clicked on “postures,” one of the remaining tabs. “These are cool,” she said. And they were. You could click on each one of about 20 postures and a box would pop up with a close-up of the posture, the Indian and English names for it, a description of how to achieve it, and the benefits it provided.

But I doubted Jeanne would get to practice it at bikram yoga Chelsea, because they never told her how to take a class. And she was too mad to call.