The key to great usability for an online shop is familiarity. People have been buying goods online for decades now, they expect to visit 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 probably 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 theory isn't so much to be prescriptive and lay out hard and fast rules, but instead to explain what will probably be most familiar to shoppers. Creativity and deviation from typical is a great thing on the internet, otherwise things would get pretty boring. But being conscious 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 cope with user log ins. Some sites require that the person log in before making a purchase, whereas others permit guest accounts. Well-known basics would be a username and password field. The sole pitfall here will be labeling the username field 'Email' ;.'Username' may be the more ubiquitous label, it can help cut-down on possible confusion that could arise if there were say a newsletter subscription box near by.
A lot of the choices to be manufactured through this interface element relate genuinely to naming; do you call it 'Register' or 'Sign-Up'?, should you label your commit button 'Go' or 'Login'?, can be your password recovery link called 'Password recovery' or 'Forgot your password?" ;.Whatever labels you choose, 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 eliminating 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 could choose 'Welcome John Smith' in place of 'Logged in as: ...'). This really is also a good place to exhibit 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 item search mechanism - the textbox for product searching is pretty straight-forward, but product browsing can go in a number of directions.
This works great if the category hierarchy is flat, it saves space plus you realize 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 could utilize a dash to indicate a sub-category, nevertheless the drop-list option would start to get rid of a number of its eloquence.
Categories and sub-categories can be treated the same as site navigation, which can be essentially what it is (i.e. product navigation). Common approaches are to use CSS fly-outs or in-place expanding panels (much like Windows Explorer) https://heelboy.com/.
Being an added touch, I like to place a reset icon close to the search button. This lets an individual return the searching mechanism to its initial state and never 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 is now fairly standardized these days. You've the merchandise name with a hyperlink back to the full product description, the price of the patient product, and the number the shopper wants to buy.
I like to add a small bin icon so shoppers can easily remove items from their basket they no longer want. You might add a sub-total at the bottom of the shopping cart, but I don't think this really is necessary since an individual will undoubtedly be shown a sub-total through the checkout stage.
Another feature which improves usability is feedback messages. It's very important to let an individual know when something happens as a result of their interaction with the machine, as an example; showing a short message when something is added or taken from their cart https://www.pro-demo.ca/.
The item details page - one of many biggest decisions here's whether to have a product listing page as well as a detailed product description page. If you're just using a listing page for products, you would show short descriptions along side each product. The alternative would imply that a shopper must click a product's summary in order to see its full details.
Generally I decide this based how much information will probably be shown with a product. If it's only expected that the few lines will be for each product's description, then the product details page wont be needed. However, this may 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 more effective with regards to usability since a shopper gets all the information they desire with fewer clicks.
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