The important thing to great usability for an web store is familiarity. People have been buying goods online for a long time now, they expect to view a certain process unfold when shopping on the internet, and when a designer makes radical departures from the status quo, tears may ensue (regardless of how good the designer's intentions may be). Does this mean a designer is locked into reproducing the same old shopping interface again and again? Certainly not, but conforming to certain standards will help the user.
This information analyzes the usability of components commonly found within most shopping website (e.g. the cart, the checkout process, etc). The idea 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 line, otherwise things would get pretty boring. But being aware of the de facto standards on shopping websites allows you to make informed decisions when going for a novel direction https://www.complasinternational.ie/.
The Login box - there's some variation in how shopping websites handle user log ins. Some sites require that a person join before creating a purchase, whereas others permit guest accounts. Well-known basics would be a username and password field. The only pitfall here could be labeling the username field 'Email' ;.'Username' could be the more ubiquitous label, it helps cut-down on possible confusion which may arise if there were say a newsletter subscription box near by.
A lot of the choices to be made through this interface element relate with naming; can you call it 'Register' or 'Sign-Up'?, in case you label your commit button 'Go' or 'Login'?, can be your password recovery link called 'Password recovery' or 'Forgot your password?" ;.Whatever labels you select, you need to favor brevity, generally nothing longer then three short words https://earsense.ie/.
Following a person logs in, there's a chance to reclaim some precious screen real-estate by removing UI elements which aren't needed anymore. Showing the shopper's name really helps to personalized the service and thus make it a tad bit more friendly (nb. you might choose 'Welcome John Smith' rather than 'Logged in as: ...'). This really is also a good place showing the 'My Account' and 'Logout' links since both these functions are logically related to the shopper's account.
In addition, a 'Logout' link is somewhat redundant since closing the browser window serves a similar purpose (assuming the session has expired), but a logout feature will help alleviate any security-related concerns a shopper may have.
The merchandise search mechanism - the textbox for product searching is pretty straight-forward, but product browsing can go in several directions.
This works great if the category hierarchy is flat, it saves space plus you realize the UI wont behave unexpectedly if the product list gets long. But what when you have sub-categories (e.g. Fishing->Hooks, Fishing->Knives, Fishing->Bait, etc)? Sure you could utilize a rush to indicate a sub-category, but the drop-list option would start to reduce some of its eloquence.
Categories and sub-categories can be treated exactly like site navigation, that is essentially what it's (i.e. product navigation). Common approaches are to use 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 an individual return the searching mechanism to its initial state without having to go all the way to the browser refresh button or press the F5 key.
The shopping basket - the structure of a shopping cart software has become fairly standardized these days. You have the product name with a hyperlink back fully product description, the price of the person product, and the quantity the shopper wants to buy.
I love to add a tiny bin icon so shoppers can easily remove items from their basket which they no more want. You might like to add a sub-total at the end of the shopping cart software, but I don't think this really is necessary since an individual is likely to be shown a sub-total during the checkout stage.
Another feature which improves usability is feedback messages. It's very important to let an individual know when something happens consequently of their interaction with the device, for instance; showing a quick message when an item is added or removed from their cart https://www.pro-demo.ca/.
The merchandise details page - one of the biggest decisions listed here is whether to truly have a product listing page along with a detailed product description page. If you were just using a listing page for products, you would show short descriptions alongside each product. The choice would signify a shopper must click a product's summary to be able to see its full details.
Generally I decide this based on what much information will be shown with a product. If it's only expected that a few lines will appear for every single product's description, then a product details page wont be needed. However, this might have significant SEO consequences since each product doesn't have it's own name appear in the browser page title-bar. Maybe it's argued that the summary-on-listing page interface is more effective in terms of usability since a shopper gets all the data they desire with fewer clicks.
No comments:
Post a Comment