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 you'll see a certain process unfold when shopping on the net, and when a custom makes radical departures from the status quo, tears may ensue (regardless of how good the designer's intentions may be). Does this mean a custom is locked into reproducing the same kind of shopping interface again and again? Not necessarily, but conforming to certain standards is going to help the user.
This short article 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 out hard and fast rules, but instead to spell it out what is going to be most familiar to shoppers. Creativity and deviation from standard is a good thing online, otherwise things would get pretty boring. But being alert to the de facto standards on shopping websites enables 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 that the person join before making a purchase, whereas others enable guest accounts. The most obvious basics would be a username and password field. The sole pitfall here would 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 made through this interface element connect with 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 select, you must favor brevity, generally nothing longer then three short words https://earsense.ie/.
After having a person logs in, there is an opportunity 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 little more friendly (nb. you might go with 'Welcome John Smith' as opposed to 'Logged in as: ...'). That is also an excellent place to show the 'My Account' and 'Logout' links since both these functions are logically related to the shopper's account.
Incidentally, a 'Logout' link is somewhat redundant since closing the browser window serves an identical 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 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 make use of a rush to point a sub-category, nevertheless the drop-list option would start to lose some of its eloquence.
Categories and sub-categories can be treated exactly like site navigation, which 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 close to the search button. This lets the user 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 software has become fairly standardized these days. You've the merchandise name with a hyperlink back fully product description, the price tag on the in-patient product, and the quantity the shopper desires to buy.
I love to incorporate a small bin icon so shoppers can quickly remove items from their basket they no longer want. You might put in a sub-total at the bottom of the shopping cart software, but I don't think this is necessary since the user will be shown a sub-total during the checkout stage.
Another feature which improves usability is feedback messages. It's crucial that you let the user know when something happens consequently of these interaction with the device, for instance; showing a quick 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 listed here is whether to have a product listing page along with an in depth product description page. If you're just employing a listing page for products, you would show short descriptions along with 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 is going to be shown with a product. If it's only expected that the few lines will be for every product's description, then the product details page wont be needed. However, this could 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 far better with regards to usability since a shopper gets all the information they desire with fewer clicks.
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