The key to great usability for an online shop is familiarity. People have now been buying goods online for years now, they expect to see a certain process unfold when shopping online, and when an artist makes radical departures from the status quo, tears may ensue (regardless of how good the designer's intentions may be). Does this mean an artist is locked into reproducing the same kind of shopping interface again and again? Definitely not, but conforming to certain standards will help the user.
This informative article analyzes the usability of components commonly found within most shopping website (e.g. the cart, the checkout process, etc). The concept isn't so much to be prescriptive and set down hard and fast rules, but rather to spell it out what will be most familiar to shoppers. Creativity and deviation from typical is a good thing on the internet, otherwise things would get pretty boring. But being alert to the de facto standards on shopping websites enables you to make informed decisions when taking a novel direction https://www.complasinternational.ie/.
The Login box - there is some variation in how shopping websites deal with user log ins. Some sites require a person sign in before making a purchase, whereas others allow for guest accounts. Well-known basics would have been a username and password field. The only real pitfall here could be labeling the username field 'Email' ;.'Username' is the more ubiquitous label, it will help cut-down on possible confusion which could arise if there were say a newsletter subscription box near by.
All the choices to be made within this interface element relate with naming; can you call it 'Register' or 'Sign-Up'?, in case you label your commit button 'Go' or 'Login'?, is your password recovery link called 'Password recovery' or 'Forgot your password?" ;.Whatever labels you decide on, you ought to favor brevity, generally nothing longer then three short words https://earsense.ie/.
After having a person logs in, there is an opportunity to reclaim some precious screen real estate by detatching UI elements which aren't needed anymore. Showing the shopper's name helps to personalized the service and thus allow it to be a bit more friendly (nb. you may go with 'Welcome John Smith' as opposed to 'Logged in as: ...'). That is also an excellent place to exhibit the 'My Account' and 'Logout' links since both these functions are logically linked to the shopper's account.
Incidentally, a 'Logout' link is somewhat redundant since closing the browser window serves an identical purpose (assuming the session has expired), but a logout feature can help alleviate any security-related concerns a shopper may have.
The item search mechanism - the textbox for product searching is pretty straight-forward, but product browsing can go in numerous directions.
This works great if the category hierarchy is flat, it saves space plus you know the UI wont behave unexpectedly if the merchandise list gets long. But what if you have sub-categories (e.g. Fishing->Hooks, Fishing->Knives, Fishing->Bait, etc)? Sure you can use a dash to point a sub-category, however the drop-list option would start to reduce some of its eloquence.
Categories and sub-categories may be treated exactly like site navigation, which will be essentially what it's (i.e. product navigation). Common approaches are to utilize CSS fly-outs or in-place expanding panels (much like Windows Explorer) https://heelboy.com/.
As an added touch, I love to place a reset icon nearby the search button. Allowing the consumer return the searching mechanism to its initial state without having to go all the best way to the browser refresh button or press the F5 key.
The shopping basket - the structure of a shopping cart application has become fairly standardized these days. You've the merchandise name with a hyperlink back to the full product description, the buying price of the in-patient product, and the quantity the shopper wants to buy.
I love to add a small bin icon so shoppers can certainly remove items from their basket that they no more want. You might also add a sub-total at the end of the shopping cart application, but I don't think this is necessary since the consumer will be shown a sub-total throughout the checkout stage.
Another feature which improves usability is feedback messages. It's crucial that you let the consumer know when something happens as a result of their interaction with the system, as an example; showing a quick message when a product is added or removed from their cart https://www.pro-demo.ca/.
The item details page - one of many biggest decisions here's whether to really have a product listing page as well as reveal product description page. If you were just employing a listing page for products, you'd show short descriptions along side each product. The choice would imply that a shopper has to click a product's summary in order to see its full details.
Generally I decide this based on how much information will be shown with a product. If it's only expected a few lines will appear for each product's description, then a product details page wont be needed. However, this could have significant SEO consequences since each product doesn't have it's own name appear in the browser page title-bar. It could be argued that the summary-on-listing page interface is far better when it comes to usability since a shopper gets all the information they want with fewer clicks.
No comments:
Post a Comment