Having recently attended a presentation of findings on the research project ‘Australian Retail Industry – Adoption Plans for Online Advertising & E-tailing’ (presented by AIMIA Retail Industry Group, Melbourne, 22 September), we’d like to share some quick thoughts on the subject…

Australian retailers have been dragging their heels in the world of e-tailing for some time and it’s no surprise that approximately 25% of online sales in Australia go overseas (Forrester Research).

Findings of independent research conducted in this area were recently presented by the Australian Interactive Media Industry Association (AIMIA). As experts in user behaviour, we were extremely interested to hear about retailer’s views in this area and looked forward to finding out how Australian retailers are planning to meet the increasing demand for efficient online channels.

Some key points were raised in the presentation, but one which stood out was that a disappointingly large number of respondents viewed ‘generating online sales’ as the least important role of the online channel. While according to the research, online sales currently equate to only 5% of total sales, this has and will continue to grow steadily.

From our experience in the field of user research, we see the potential for retailers to grow this number significantly. To see this channel begin to reach its full potential, open up new markets and deter more shoppers from purchasing from overseas competitors, Aussie retailers need to start dedicating adequate time and resources to improving the customer experience and working to achieve a seamless, multi-channel approach.

Thanks to everybody who came last night to our World Usability Day event. We had a lot of fun and hope you did too.

Some discussions were held around what trends we will be seeing in the coming year. Most of these seem to be technology driven, and many will present interesting usability challenges as designers face the task of building new experience types around these new possibilities.

Some of the key topics discussed focused around:

• Mobile web – How to face the challenge of disparate handset specs, smaller screen and distracted users? When is a pared down mobile version of the site the better choice, or can new high resolution handset allow users to easily use standard sites?
• Location awareness – This is a feature we expect to see a lot more of in the next twelve months, and how designers approach its implementation will be very interesting

There seemed to be a few points of disagreement amongst the audience, so as promised we’ve opened up this page to continue the discussion. Feel free to put your usability predictions in the comments area below. What trends in research and design do you think we will see emerging over the coming months?