Forum Moderators: open
Thanks,
Louis
How about if people share a few general usability and navigation fetures they really like to see in an ecommerce site? I personally like to have some way of navigating by product cateogry... I'm fond of drop-down navigation menus for that.
Sorry, I just couldn't resist kidding around a little, but it can happen - so we do try to keep discussions general, in addition to which keeping it out on the board gets varied input and many of us can benefit from the discussion at the same time.
>I'm in a similar situation
Actually, so am I this very day, Louis! I'm in the process of doing up a couple of new sites, and every time it's good to re-think what makes a good site. I'll really enjoy a discussion on what makes a good ecommerce site.
Having an enitre thread that consists of nothing more than "Sticky me please," "sticky me too," "I feel left out, can you sticky me also," etc., etc., ad infinitum is kind of a waste of a public community board, because no information is being exchanged publically.
If people have favorite site features they'd like to share, please do share them... just do us all the service of sharing them on the board where everyone can benefit.
I agree with the shopping cart.
The feature I find myself wishing for most often is the ability to search by keyword(s) and price range. Often it's possible to search by one or the other, but rarely both.
A Bad Thing:
One thing that really bugs me is the inability to enter an overseas billing address. I use online shopping to buy presents for friends & family who are in a different country, so that I can save on postage. Imagine my frustration when I've spent ages finding a good gift site based in their country, choosing the right gift, going through the shopping cart section (often 5 pages longer than it needs to be), entering the delivery address, composing a greeting message, choosing the wrapping, and entering my credit card details, only to find that the site won't allow me to enter my address because I'm "in the wrong country" - aaaaaarghhh! I'm paying by credit card for goodness sake, it shouldn't matter where I am. Grr.
>find a product catalogue.
A lot of sites have links from the main page to main category sections of the site as navigation that's common throughout the site. In the case where the graphical interface is a little large in size that can slow loading time throughout the site. I've seen where it was carried right into the shopping cart and at times people emailed the owner saying they couldn't shop the cart was so slow to load.
Having a good catalog page could probably eliminate that. What would you say is a good setup for a catalog page - something like a site map?
Send my credit card and billing and shipping addresses through a secure protocol, and tell me that's what you're doing.
Give me a telephone number in case things go horribly wrong. Sometimes I need to talk to a real human being, especially when it involves my credit card number.
What makes you stay on a site to shop??
I'll second Purple_Martins sentiments about overseas shipping and addresses. One thing in particular, we don't have zip codes or post codes here - yet on many shopping sites they insist you put it in, even though you're about to tell them that you're from Ireland. In the end I put in nozip or 00 or something like that just to force the page to submit. It's not a huge problem for me, but I'm thinking about novice users panicing and leaving without buying anything becuase they were not allowed to skip a section that they have no information for (ie Zip Code/Post Code).
Speed is another thing, if the site is too slow I'll go somewhere else. I'm an impulse buyer - if I see something I like, I want it right now, yesterday... last week! If a site makes me wait for ages while it goes in and out of it's SSL, I'll go elsewhere online.
Obviously, a "shopping cart" is an easily recognized visual aid. But what about informational boxes? If throughout the site the same colors, fonts and presentation are used to offer information aids and prompts, then the usability of the site is increased.
This is also a good argument for maintaining a limited color scheme: too many colors and text variations will lessen the impact of info/prompt text boxes and negate their effectiveness.
Less is more. Keep your navigation simple and consistant, resist gratuitous "enhancements" such as "cool" images and gui widgets.
Limit your fonts. You do NOT need endless variations. Be very specific in the application of font-size and color and you will enhance the usability of the site.
Use lists judiciously. Save these powerful elements for showcasing and highlighting. Make so that when a list is presented your user knows it is important.
K.I.S.S. is good!
What I do like is places that let me either save the cart for later or save a 'wishlist' type cart. I often find a bunch of things I like then go away and think about it before I make a purchase (and check the exchange rate and try to find my credit card and..). If I can easily collect things I like but don't want to buy right now, without any pressure to make the purchase, I'm more likely to come back and buy them later. So it works for the seller also. A lot of sites do this and I've made extra purchases in the past because of it.
I spend a great deal of time here, taking the links to look at other minimalist designs. Clean is better. Though I don't see how many of then qualify as minimalist.
www.textbased.com/~minimalist/
Anything for an Ecommerce site that requires a lot of links?
For me, clean is better.
