One of the interesting takeouts from our recent eCommerce research is that online ‘window shopping’ is increasingly becoming part of our lives.

So, what does this mean for eCommerce retailers? This information points to the importance of the browsing experience. It also presents a significant opportunity. Providing a site that is intuitive and user friendly, which allows users to quickly and easily browse products has benefits for retailers. It encourages users to spend more time on the site, which provides more opportunity to convert those browsers into purchasers.

How do you increase the usability of an online store in terms of browsing? Beyond the standard usability best practice for websites, our research identified another key aspect: flexibility. Retailers need to create an environment which provides the flexibility for users to browse the site how they wish. This involves allowing users to refine and sort products by a number of different factors such as category, brand, price and size.

A solid understanding of the different ways users may wish to browse products on a particular website is essential for retailers. This will differ depending on the product offerings. For example, a user who is browsing LED TVs will likely wish to sort products by screen size. However, a user browsing a used car website may wish to sort products based on any number of factors (year, manufacturer, kilometers traveled or number of doors to name just a few). The used car website highlights the importance of browsing flexibility for online stores.

Another important aspect of browsing flexibility is the ability for users to control the number of items displayed on a page. Users have expressed that pressing ‘next’ can get very annoying when a website displays a set number of products per page, with no option to increase or decrease this number. Allowing users to decide how many products they wish to view further provides the flexibility users seek from online stores.

Providing relevant, logical sorting options (and the functionality to clear these options at any time) enables users to browse a site according to their needs, facilitating a more enjoyable experience. For retailers, this provides the added benefit of potentially increasing online sales.

For further information related to eCommerce best practice, please view our report: ‘The State of Online Retail – Part 1’ (PDF – 6.4MB).

Often, UsabilityOne work with clients who are constrained in the changes that they can make to their websites by design rules enforced by an international parent company. Employing a consistent design can be greatly beneficial in building a strong international brand, however, in some cases these constraints can negatively impact the user experience of a local website. When constrained by these types of design rules there are several points to keep in mind:

1. Use language that is appropriate for the local audience. It is important that the website speaks to the user in familiar language and not only in terms of product names but throughout detailed content such as terms and conditions.
2. Use images that are appropriate for the local audience. The imagery used is an important branding tool,  used to differentiate categories of content and often are navigable items. The use of inappropriate imagery can be disconcerting and create mistrust. It is important that the images used depict scenes that will resonate with the local audience.
3. Ensure that the iconography and symbols used, are appropriate for the local audience. Icons and symbols that are instantly recognisable to a European audience may not be relevant to an Australian one.
4. Where strict adherence to international guidelines creates serious difficulties for your users, be prepared to bend the rules to ensure the best user experience is provided.

For some further reading, see Christian Arno’s post on Inspect Element.

Mapping applications are a great way to present your contact information, particularly when your company has multiple stores or locations. However, if executed poorly they can actually add to the difficulty of you customers finding your stores. The following are some important design considerations when presenting information with a map.

Take care when starting on a map at the country level as the only way to find locations. Maps like the one below typically rely on visitors zooming and panning controls of that particular mapping application, something not all users are familiar with. Forcing visitors to use the map to drill-down from a country to suburb level can also be time consuming and error prone. When testing the example below, participants who were experienced with using online maps took an average of 19 mouse movements to locate the South Melbourne store.

Users like to be given options so they can choose a means of interaction that suits them best. Some users prefer drilling down using a map, others do not. Displaying alternatives to the map, such as a postcode search or state selection, allows users to choose the option that best meets their needs.

Below is a good example where users are given flexible choices in locating their nearest store. They can enter their postcode for an exact match, drill-down by state or interact with the map. The state selector still gives users an overview of locations, but eliminates extensive zooming on the map from the country level.

As with all features of your site; design your mapping feature so that the user can use it as they wish. Offering multiple ways to interact with the feature means users will be able to find one that best suits them.

Welcome to UsabilityOne’s shiny new blog.

A quick introduction about us, and what we plan to do in this blog:

We are an Australian based usability research agency with offices in (not so) sunny Melbourne, and (slightly more) sunny Sydney. We conduct user research and usability testing for a wide range of clients, to help them improve the user experience of their interfaces.

As a team, we frequently share interesting articles, tools, discussions and resources with each other. This blog is a place for us to share these with you, as well as to put up some thoughts and opinions of our own. You can respond in kind, and share your thoughts on our posts, as well as add content which you feel would add to the discussion.

Another usability blog?

Yes, there are a lot of blogs out there writing about user experience, and we definitely don’t want to just add to the noise. We hope to be different in a few ways. We like to think that we have a unique perspective on a number of aspects of usability.

For starters, we are not a design agency. Whilst we work closely with designers on most projects, we focus on the research side of things. Where others may focus on principles of design, we focus on the principles of research design. And how that can help you to design a better user interface.

Additionally, being a consultancy we get to work on a lot of different projects. We work on all kinds of interfaces, large and small, stationary and mobile, and get to experience many different approaches to solving user’s problems and meeting their needs. We frequently find that some of the best solutions to an issue come from a different industry or platform to the design in question.

These differences will also mean we can offer a unique set of perspectives on usability and user experience. Hopefully, what we write in this blog will sit nicely alongside those you already have in your feed reader or morning reading list.

So don’t be shy

This blog has been set up to enable a conversation with you, the reader – our clients and peers. If you have a question for us, disagree with us, want to show us something, or just want to say hi then please do. Leave a comment, or send us an email if you would prefer. Look forward to hearing from you.

The U1 Team.