The key to great usability for an online shop is familiarity. People have now been buying goods online for a long time now, they expect to visit 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 is going to 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 concept isn't so much to be prescriptive and lay down hard and fast rules, but instead to spell it out what is going to be most familiar to shoppers. Creativity and deviation from the norm is an excellent 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 taking a novel direction https://www.complasinternational.ie/.
The Login box - there is some variation in how shopping websites handle user log ins. Some sites require a person join before creating a purchase, whereas others permit guest accounts. The most obvious basics would be a username and password field. The only real pitfall here would be labeling the username field 'Email' ;.'Username' may be the more ubiquitous label, it helps cut-down on possible confusion that could arise if there were say a newsletter subscription box near by.
The majority of the choices to be manufactured in this interface element connect 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 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 property by removing UI elements which aren't needed anymore. Showing the shopper's name helps to personalized the service and thus make it a bit more friendly (nb. you can go with 'Welcome John Smith' as opposed to 'Logged in as: ...'). That is also a good place to show the 'My Account' and 'Logout' links since both these functions are logically linked to the shopper's account.
By the way, a 'Logout' link is somewhat redundant since closing the browser window serves an identical purpose (assuming the session has expired), but a logout feature may 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 numerous directions.
This works great if the category hierarchy is flat, it saves space plus you know the UI wont behave unexpectedly if the item list gets long. But what when you have sub-categories (e.g. Fishing->Hooks, Fishing->Knives, Fishing->Bait, etc)? Sure you could use a sprint to point a sub-category, nevertheless the drop-list option would start to reduce some of its eloquence.
Categories and sub-categories can be treated just like site navigation, which is essentially what it's (i.e. product navigation). Common approaches are to make use of CSS fly-outs or in-place expanding panels (much like Windows Explorer) https://heelboy.com/.
As an added touch, I like to place a reset icon near the search button. Allowing the user return the searching mechanism to its initial state and never 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 is now fairly standardized these days. You've the item name with a hyperlink back to the full product description, the price of the individual product, and the amount the shopper really wants to buy.
I like to incorporate a tiny bin icon so shoppers can simply remove items from their basket they no more want. You could also put in a sub-total in the bottom of the shopping cart, but I don't think this really is necessary since the user is going to be shown a sub-total throughout the checkout stage.
Another feature which improves usability is feedback messages. It's important to let the user know when something happens as a result of their interaction with the device, for instance; showing a brief message when something is added or taken from their cart https://www.pro-demo.ca/.
The merchandise details page - among the biggest decisions here's whether to have a product listing page along with 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 how much information is going to be shown with a product. If it's only expected a few lines will appear for each product's description, a product details page wont be needed. However, this could have significant SEO consequences since each product doesn't have it's own name can be found in the browser page title-bar. Maybe it's argued that the summary-on-listing page interface is far better with regards to usability since a shopper gets all the information they desire with fewer clicks.
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