The key to great usability for an online store is familiarity. People have now been buying goods online for years now, they expect to view a certain process unfold when shopping online, 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 old shopping interface again and again? Not necessarily, but conforming to certain standards will probably help the user.
This article analyzes the usability of components commonly found within most shopping website (e.g. the cart, the checkout process, etc). The theory isn't so much to be prescriptive and set down hard and fast rules, but rather to spell it out what will probably be most familiar to shoppers. Creativity and deviation from typical is a great thing on the net, otherwise things would get pretty boring. But being aware of the de facto standards on shopping websites lets you make informed decisions when having a novel direction https://www.complasinternational.ie/.
The Login box - there is some variation in how shopping websites deal with user log ins. Some sites require that the person sign in before creating a purchase, whereas others permit guest accounts. The most obvious basics would have been a username and password field. The only pitfall here will be labeling the username field 'Email' ;.'Username' is the more ubiquitous label, it can help cut-down on possible confusion which may arise if there were say a newsletter subscription box near by.
The majority of the choices to be manufactured through this interface element relate to 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 choose, you must favor brevity, generally nothing longer then three short words https://earsense.ie/.
Following a person logs in, there is an opportunity to reclaim some precious screen real estate by detatching UI elements which aren't needed anymore. Showing the shopper's name helps to personalized the service and thus ensure it is a little more friendly (nb. you can opt for 'Welcome John Smith' in place of 'Logged in as: ...'). This is also a good place to show the 'My Account' and 'Logout' links since both these functions are logically linked to the shopper's account.
In addition, a 'Logout' link is somewhat redundant since closing the browser window serves an identical purpose (assuming the session has expired), but a logout feature might help alleviate any security-related concerns a shopper may have.
The item 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 item list gets long. But what when you have sub-categories (e.g. Fishing->Hooks, Fishing->Knives, Fishing->Bait, etc)? Sure you can use a rush to indicate a sub-category, but the drop-list option would start to lose some of its eloquence.
Categories and sub-categories could be treated exactly like site navigation, which can be essentially what it's (i.e. product navigation). Common approaches are to utilize CSS fly-outs or in-place expanding panels (much like Windows Explorer) https://heelboy.com/.
Being an added touch, I prefer to put a reset icon near the search button. Allowing the consumer return the searching mechanism to its initial state without having to go all how you can the browser refresh button or press the F5 key.
The shopping basket - the structure of a shopping cart is now fairly standardized these days. You have the item name with a hyperlink back fully product description, the price of the in-patient product, and the quantity the shopper desires to buy.
I prefer to add a tiny bin icon so shoppers can easily remove items from their basket which they no further want. You could also put in a sub-total at the end of the shopping cart, but I don't think this really is necessary since the consumer will undoubtedly be shown a sub-total throughout the checkout stage.
Another feature which improves usability is feedback messages. It's very important to let the consumer know when something happens consequently of the interaction with the machine, for instance; showing a short message when something is added or taken from their cart https://www.pro-demo.ca/.
The item details page - among the biggest decisions listed here is whether to really have a product listing page along with an in depth product description page. If you were just utilizing a listing page for products, you'd show short descriptions along side each product. The choice would mean that a shopper needs to click a product's summary to be able to see its full details.
Generally I decide this based on what much information will probably be shown with a product. If it's only expected that the few lines will be for every single product's description, then a product details page wont be needed. However, this might have significant SEO consequences since each product doesn't have it's own name appear in the browser page title-bar. It could be argued that the summary-on-listing page interface is more effective with regards to usability since a shopper gets all the information they desire with fewer clicks.
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