Improving the Ecommerce User Experience: Dr Mike Baxter

Improving the Ecommerce User Experience Dr Mike Baxter Sales Logiq 14 th May 2010

What is User Experience?

It’s not just about what you say, it’s how you say it.
The cycle of return visits and repeat purchases can be interrupted by broken promises, and by poor presentation and usability.
The Retailing Promise Presentation & Usability

What the user does on your web site
What the user doesn’t do on your web site
What the user feels about your web site
What the user doesn’t know they feel about your web site
What outcomes the user achieves on your web site
What outcomes the user fails to achieve on your web site

Unexpected causes An attractive female researcher asked male subjects to complete a visual perception test – either on a scary bridge or on a bridge that was not scary. Significantly more of the scary-bridge subjects later contacted the researcher to ask to go out with her. The Mis-attribution of Arousal Paradigm

Unexpected causes An attractive female researcher asked male subjects to complete a visual perception test – either on a scary bridge or on a bridge that was not scary. Significantly more of the scary-bridge subjects later contacted the researcher to ask to go out with her. The Mis-attribution of Arousal Paradigm We do quite a lot of things for reasons we don’t realise!

Too much choice damages sales Barry Schwartz 2004 The Paradox of Choice

Too much choice damages sales Offering customers a choice of 24 different jams, rather than 6, reduced purchase commitment by 90% Barry Schwartz 2004 The Paradox of Choice

The customer’s sub-conscious mind
Constructed preferences
Negativity bias
Anticipated regret
Framing and anchoring
etc, etc

The Blink Test http://www.sanbaldo.com/exp/

The Retailing Promise especially important in distance selling
Marketing promise
Merchandising promise
Payment & Delivery promise
Fulfilment (of promises)
Marketing promise – Who?
Merchandising promise – What?
Payment & Delivery promise – How & when?

Webby Awards 2009 Best Home Page Nominee

Webby Awards 2009 Best Home Page Nominee Marketing promise basics: Who am I? What do I offer? Why should you choose me?

Webby Awards 2010 Best Retail – People’s Voice Winner Who am I? What do I offer? Why should you choose me?

What are the promises? Who do you trust to deliver them? Who am I? What do I offer? Why should you choose me?

Marketing Promise: Landing Pages

Marketing Promise: Landing Pages Who am I? What do I offer? Why should you choose me?

Marketing Promise: Landing Pages
Adwords taking me somewhere unexpected
Where am I on the site – poor navigation
How do I find other products like this?
Who am I? What do I offer? Why should you choose me?

Where am I on the site?

How do I find products like this?

Merchandising Promise
Seeing the
wood for the
trees
Merchandising promise basics: Where do I find it? What is it? Is it available? What does it cost?

? ? ? Where do I find it?

Is it available?

Merchandising Promise
Forcing customers to jump back and forth between product list and product description pages can cut sales conversion by 80% From User Interface Engineering, USA

Payment & Delivery Promise Payment / delivery promise basics: How / when can I get it? How can I pay for it?

Checkout abandonment
Data from Coremetrics
...the average online checkout makes customers abandon half of the revenues they are in the process of spending.

Improving the whole checkout
Isolating the checkout
Checkout steps
Navigation in checkout
Persistent summary of checkout information
Avoiding loss of information already entered by customers
Stock management & session timing
Form design
Validation and error-trapping
Calls to action / submit buttons
Trust

Isolating the checkout
Serenata Chocolates has a well-enclosed checkout, with global navigation removed and links to terms and information appearing in pop-up layers
www.serenatachocolates.com

Checkout steps

Checkout steps
Accordion checkout
www.beautifulpure.com

Navigation in checkout
Ensure browser back button works
Give persistent visibility of information
Have clear edit buttons
www.gap.com

Persistent summary of checkout information
As the customer progresses through the checkout, so the checkout summary
extends.
www.comet.co.uk

Avoiding loss of information already entered www.houseoffraser.co.uk Between the (obligatory) registration and the first step of checkout, House of Fraser ‘forgets’ my information!

Avoiding loss of information already entered Saving basket contents can increase revenue (within the bounds of effective stock management)

Stock management & session timing
Make stock availability clear prior to checkout
Communicate clearly any changes to stock availability
Reserve / release stock at an appropriate moment…
www.ticketmaster.co.uk

Stock management & session timing www.dell.com www.jcpenney.com

Form design
Don’t ask for anything unless it is essential
Explain why information is required
www.littlewoods.com www.next.co.uk

Form design
Identify compulsory fields:
Use appropriate controls for selecting from lists:
Don’t use drop-down lists for choices of one
Use radio buttons to show all options
Use checkboxes for confirmation or consent
Consider ‘opt-in’ vs ‘opt-out’ for email marketing – be consistent with multiple check boxes (e.g. all ‘opt-in’)

Form design
The size of form fields should inform the customer how much information they are expected to enter
Offer guidance notes to reassure customers

Form design
Use top-aligned labels for short forms
Use right-aligned labels for longer forms
From Luke Wroblewski

Don’t unless you have to!
Let customers type in what they want, then use your e-commerce system to process it into a different format if necessary
www.tesco.com

If an error is made:
Make it clear that an error has been detected
Identify the location of the error using double error messaging
Indicate the nature of the error, and, if not obvious, what needs to be done to rectify it

Calls to action / submit buttons www.jcpenney.com www.marksandspencer.com
Submit buttons need to be:
Visually salient
Visually isolated
Visually consistent

Calls to action / submit buttons
Button labelling
Button positioning
Buttons need to be:
Visually salient
Visually isolated
Visually consistent
Duplicated above/below fold

Trust https://

Fulfillment (of Promises)
Image – empty basket
When to empty the basket?
Argos dell ticketmaster

Measuring customer experience
Google Analytics offers 6,000,000 different metrics

How do we measure user experience? Customer journey analysis Web analytics

E-commerce: the basics!
Who are you and what do you sell?
How can I find you?
How should I choose what to buy?
Why should I remember you?

Thank-you
[email_address]
07740 664696
Talk to Sales Logiq about auditing your e-commerce site to improve its performance

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Improving the Ecommerce User Experience: Dr Mike Baxter

by The Internet Conference. on May 15, 2010

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Improving the Ecommerce User Experience: Dr Mike Baxter — Presentation Transcript