Posts tagged with 'User experience'

If it works for Amazon, why wouldn’t it work for your site?

By Ariana Polyviou on 9 August 2010

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When creating a new ecommerce website, one of the key issues that is likely to come up is ‘How to create a successful user interface?’ An easy answer could be ‘Do it like Amazon’ and besides, nobody can deny it, Amazon is one of the most successful ecommerce stores worldwide.

Amazon’s facts speak for themselves:

  • Listed at 17th position within the 1000 most visited sites for June 2010
  • Approximately 81,000,000 unique visitors per month
  • Around 3,600,000,000 page visits per month.
  • Market capitalization of over $50 billion

Sometimes it’s good to copy the big guys. But copying a successful design does not mean that the company’s success will be copied with it!

So, ‘If it works for Amazon, why wouldn’t it work for your site?’

Reason #1 – Amazon’s low prices offsets its imperfect user experience

Amazon definitely doesn’t have a sparkling interface design. So what is it about it that makes it so successful?

Amazon can afford to sell at cost or below cost prices, offer free delivery and still have profit! It relies on its large number of customers and its fast selling pace, which can provide cash before the payment of the goods, is due to their original supplier.

Question #1: Is this type of marketing included in your business plan?

Reason #2: Amazon’s existing customers are more important than new ones

If you’ve used Amazon before then it’s more than likely that you will easily find what you are looking for.  Firstly, because you know that in order to find the product that best suits you, you have to follow the process of:

  • Searching by a product by name
  • Choosing only one category of goods
  • Then have the sorting and filtering options enabled

Secondly, if you’re an existing user then Amazon already knows your purchasing patterns. This boosts up your chances to experience serendipity by receiving more personalised product recommendations.

Amazon has a lot of existing customers who are used to its product search process. Thus, making major changes to it involves the risk of dissatisfying its 81m+ registered customers. But what happens if you’re a new user and there’s no purchasing patterns log for you?

You’re most likely to get odd or not useful recommendations and struggle to search efficiently for the desired product. Therefore, unless you have plenty of time, patience or luck, it’s unlikely that you’ll reach a product’s best matches to your requirements.

Question #2: Can you afford transacting only with your existing customers?

Reason #3:  Amazon is continuously testing

Have you ever noticed frequent change of features in the layout of Facebook e.g. the Newsfeed?

Of course, if you are Facebook  (the website with the most traffic for June 2010) or Amazon, then you can afford to test some new designs and features directly on your users. Besides, losing some of them may not even be noticeable!

The problem with copying Amazon is that you can’t know what’s there to stay and what’s to be removed after a while. You can’t know which features have a positive and which ones have a negative return. Copying Amazon involves a high risk of copying features which are temporarily placed on the site just for experimental purposes.

Question #3: Can your ecommerce site afford having features that are possibly not usable?

Reason #4: Amazon has good customer reviews

Sometimes, people hesitate to purchase goods through ecommerce sites because they’re unable to physically see the item they’re planning to buy. Reading reviews of recent buyers of a product can provide future buyers with a clearer idea about what to expect from the purchase. It’s hard to get people to post feedback on a product. Statistically, 1 in 3000 of buyers are likely to leave a review for an item. Considering Amazon’s traffic, this still gives it enough reviews per product.

Many people choose to buy from Amazon not necessarily because of its good prices or interface but because of the trustworthy community and the content it holds.

Question #4: Is the size of your customer community analogous to the Amazon one?

Reason #5: Amazon’s famous name is enough for making its users feel secure

Have you ever noticed that Amazon does not have an EV SSL certificate? This certificate indicates when it’s safe to transact by changing the URL initials from http to https and turning the URL address bar green.

The use of this certificate is critical for making customers feel safe and confident to purchase goods using their credit card over the Internet.  But, if you’re as popular as Amazon, then there is no trustworthiness issue.  In fact, people may not even check to see if you’re using an SSL certificate.

Question #5: Is your  company as famous as Amazon?

In summary…

If your answers aren’t ‘Yes’ for the questions #1-5, then perhaps you should rethink before copying Amazon.

To sum up, just because the system is working for Amazon, it doesn’t mean it will work as efficiently for you. Each design is created to match a certain type of business model. If the business model of Amazon doesn’t match yours, then perhaps copying the design of Amazon to your site could be a bad idea.

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Is instant IT gratification raising user expectations to an unachievable level?

By Pete Broadbent on 25 June 2010

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It always amazes me when I press the genius button on my iPod and an instant play list is created which is perfect for my needs, it rarely disappoints! Is it possible that my iPod knows my music library better than I do? Absolutely it does, don’t ask me how but it is damn clever.

Surely this level of functionality is a good thing I hear you shout? Well in theory it is, but we can’t overlook the effect that this and similar functionality has in raising user expectations of all the tools and services they use.

This manifested itself most recently during a round of workshops we ran for an intranet design project. I was amazed at the technical literacy of the employees involved and it became very clear that users are no longer satisfied with the status quo. Their understanding of the ‘art of the possible’ has grown exponentially and I regularly hear users say  ”just make it work like Google.”

As expectations rise our job as user experience designers gets harder but it sure is getting interesting..

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ITV – it’s all to play for

By Claire Savage on 24 June 2010

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I heard on the radio that historically England performs better when their games are broadcast on BBC television and not ITV. So it was with great relief that I settled down to watch the match on BBC Television yesterday, not just because of the risk of cutting to an advert just before the 1 goal of the match, but also with some hope we would get through to the last 16!

Perhaps it’s not surprising then, that ITV came bottom in our World Cup Websites: All to Play For report. Over the last few weeks we have analysed the World Cup-focused websites of FIFA and four major broadcasters - the BBC, Sky, ITV and Eurosport, against 10 best practice usability guidelines.

It’s been an interesting report to write as really this event could be argued to be the main predecessor to the Olympics 2012 and lessons learnt during the World Cup will be the basis of online presence in 2 years time. We think the 2010 World Cup has seen people going online en masse like no other sporting event before, just think about the multi platform user experience during London 2012.

Enough of the future and back to the present. We’re down to the last 16 and a message for ITV:

‘ITV – it’s all to play for.. but currently it’s BBC 1 and ITV 0’.

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BA holds its no.1 position

By Claire Savage on 8 June 2010

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BA continues to hold 1st place in terms of online usability for users according to our latest online travel report, Flights Online: Ensuring Your Site Takes Off.

Just as well as 2010 could be said to be its Annus horribilis to date.

First the snow, then volcanic ash followed by a number of strikes, at least BA are making it easy for the user to purchase flights online if not following through with the service by actually having it’s airlines fly.

In a competitive market which is more and more feeling the influence of uncontrollable outside effects, making it easy for someone to find and purchase travel has never been so important. Now, when users are sitting at home booking a flight or holiday many other considerations are going to come into play, so keeping a potential customer is crucial.

So why do the average scores in our annual travel report still leave plenty of room for improvement? Although the average usability score has increased from 56.7% to 64.4% since last year, basic guidelines that still need improvement include the following:

  • Supporting comparison shoppers
  • Making pages ‘share-friendly’
  • Providing airport information
  • Displaying clear progress bars
  • Providing contact numbers during the booking process

So perhaps for those companies with lower scores this is their time to capitalise at BA’s expense and improve their user experience.

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Poll results: Online retailers need to be transparent and upfront

By Claire Savage on 26 May 2010

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A lack of transparency and the request for upfront details when purchasing on line is the biggest cause of drop offs according to our recent ecommerce poll.

The research polled over 1,200 online users, asking why they would abandon an order when shopping online. The results were:

  • Having to register before buying – 29%
  • Hidden charges at the checkout – 41%
  • Lengthy checkout process – 10%
  • Not clear delivery details – 11%
  • Phone number not provided on website – 8%

Is that really that surprising? Taking the traditional experience of shopping, consumers do not expect a list of additional charges at the checkout and would, I expect get very upset at the prospect. Nor, would the shopper in the traditional retail environment expect to register their details before paying for the goods in their basket.

As one respondent commented ‘If the checkout process is too much of a hassle, or becomes too involved, I am apt to go somewhere else”.

As with all online experiences, the web is meant to make things easier and quicker not more time consuming and taxing in transactions.

Retailers need to focus on the consumer needs online just like they do in the traditional environment and by implementing basic usability guidelines the poll results would be radically different.

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