The main element to great usability for an online shop is familiarity. People have been buying goods online for years now, they be prepared to view a certain process unfold when shopping on the net, 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 kind of shopping interface again and again? Definitely not, but conforming to certain standards will help the user.
This article 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 explain what will be most familiar to shoppers. Creativity and deviation from typical is an excellent thing on line, otherwise things would get pretty boring. But being alert to the de facto standards on shopping websites lets you make informed decisions when going for a novel direction https://www.complasinternational.ie/.
The Login box - there is some variation in how shopping websites cope with user log ins. Some sites require that a person sign in before making a purchase, whereas others enable guest accounts. The most obvious basics would have been a username and password field. The only real pitfall here would be labeling the username field 'Email' ;.'Username' could be the more ubiquitous label, it helps cut-down on possible confusion which could arise if there have been say a newsletter subscription box near by.
The majority of the choices to be manufactured in this interface element relate genuinely to naming; do 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 ought to favor brevity, generally nothing longer then three short words https://earsense.ie/.
After having a person logs in, there is a chance to reclaim some precious screen real-estate by detatching UI elements which aren't needed anymore. Showing the shopper's name helps you to personalized the service and thus make it a tad bit more friendly (nb. you might opt for 'Welcome John Smith' in place of 'Logged in as: ...'). This really is also a great 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 an identical purpose (assuming the session has expired), but a logout feature might 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 understand the UI wont behave unexpectedly if the item list gets long. But what if you have sub-categories (e.g. Fishing->Hooks, Fishing->Knives, Fishing->Bait, etc)? Sure you could utilize a dash to indicate a sub-category, however the drop-list option would start to lose some of its eloquence.
Categories and sub-categories could be treated exactly like site navigation, that will be essentially what it is (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. This lets 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 has become fairly standardized these days. You've the item name with a hyperlink back to the full product description, the price of the average person product, and the amount the shopper really wants to buy.
I love to add a tiny bin icon so shoppers can easily remove items from their basket that they no further want. You might put in a sub-total in the bottom of the shopping cart, but I don't think this is necessary since the consumer is going to be shown a sub-total through the checkout stage.
Another feature which improves usability is feedback messages. It's important to let the consumer know when something happens consequently of their interaction with the system, for instance; showing a short message when an item is added or taken off their cart https://www.pro-demo.ca/.
The merchandise details page - one of many biggest decisions here's whether to truly have a product listing page in addition to reveal product description page. If you're just utilizing a listing page for products, you would show short descriptions alongside each product. The alternative would mean that a shopper has to 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 be for every single product's description, then the product details page wont be needed. However, this might have significant SEO consequences since each product doesn't have it's own name can be found 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 info they need with fewer clicks.
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