BetFair inaugurates a Politics zone (with compound charts) that nobody (but their so-called usability experts) will be able to see.

The link to that Politics zone is well hidden deep into the BetFair system. Here’s the screen shot of a BetFair prediction market page.

1. The trader should first click on the “Rules” tab on a political market page (since the rules of an election market are obvious, it’s unlikely);
2. The trader who will not get that clicking on the blue image (wrongly titled, “Politics – Bet now”) will bring them to that Politics zone;
3. The link to the Politics zone, and the link to the BetFair blog, have nothing to do under the “Rules” label. Both links should be regrouped under an “Information” tab.

OK, let’s go now to that Politics zone.

1. The main political probabilistic predictions are regrouped on one page. Great.
2. There are compound charts, which we can republish on our prediction market blogs. Great.
3. On my screen, the probabilities are given in percentages. Great. (My browser is based on the US system. I wonder whether a British browser connecting from within the UK shows the “Odds” option, instead.)

Here’s a zoom on a chart:

1. “Next US President”, would be better.
2. Great colors.
3. Maybe a pale blue or green (as opposed to white), for the background, would have been cuter.
4. No historical charts. Spot that this chart starts on January 20, 2008, well after that that prediction market was created. No good.
5. No volumes. No good.
6. No way to get expired charts. No good.
7. No explainer on how to get dynamic charts. No good. (See appendix.)

The InTrade-TradeSports charts are much, much better. Go there, select a prediction market, click on “Advanced Charting”, and then play with the charts. You will see what I mean.

On that one, the Britons are way behind. I suspect that the BetFair usability employees don’t exchange views with the most advanced BetFair traders/bloggers. They view Hammersmith as a Kibbutz, maybe. Or maybe they indulge too much on James Bond movies and they think they all belong to the MI6. A usability expert who doesn’t survey advanced users is like a butcher without meat. Internet usability is more an approach than an expertise. It all starts with user surveys and eye-tracking research. I doubt they have great usability professionals who know how to reach out.

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In the appendix of this post, I am pasting a hot-link to the chart above, just to see if the BetFair server accepts that. (I bet not. A pity. Dynamic charts would be great for bloggers.) Let’s see, just below. (If you see nothing just below, it means there’s no way to have constantly updated charts from BetFair.)

UPDATE: I saw the hot-linked chart… Great. I hope the image will not disappear once I have updated this post… (It happened to me when I tried to hot-link to the InTrade charts…)

UPDATE #2: Great. I have hot-linked to 3 of their compound charts on our “Predictions” page. I have, of course, provided deep links to the appropriate BetFair pages.