The key to great usability for an web store is familiarity. People have now been buying goods online for decades now, they be prepared to visit a certain process unfold when shopping on the net, and when an artist makes radical departures from the status quo, tears may ensue (regardless of how good the designer's intentions may be). Does this mean an artist is locked into reproducing the same kind of shopping interface again and again? Not necessarily, but conforming to certain standards is going to help the user.
This short article analyzes the usability of components commonly found within most shopping website (e.g. the cart, the checkout process, etc). The idea isn't so much to be prescriptive and set down hard and fast rules, but instead to describe what is going to be most familiar to shoppers. Creativity and deviation from standard is an excellent thing online, 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 handle user log ins. Some sites require that a person sign in before creating a purchase, whereas others enable guest accounts. The obvious basics will be 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.
All of the choices to be manufactured within this interface element relate to naming; can you call it 'Register' or 'Sign-Up'?, in case you label your commit button 'Go' or 'Login'?, is the password recovery link called 'Password recovery' or 'Forgot your password?" ;.Whatever labels you choose, you need to favor brevity, generally nothing longer then three short words https://earsense.ie/.
After a person logs in, there is an opportunity to reclaim some precious screen property by detatching UI elements which aren't needed anymore. Showing the shopper's name helps you to personalized the service and thus allow it to be a bit more friendly (nb. you may choose 'Welcome John Smith' as opposed to 'Logged in as: ...'). This really is also an excellent place showing the 'My Account' and 'Logout' links since both these functions are logically related to the shopper's account.
By the way, a 'Logout' link is somewhat redundant since closing the browser window serves an identical purpose (assuming the session has expired), but a logout feature could help alleviate any security-related concerns a shopper may have.
The merchandise 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 merchandise list gets long. But what if you have sub-categories (e.g. Fishing->Hooks, Fishing->Knives, Fishing->Bait, etc)? Sure you could use a splash to indicate a sub-category, however the drop-list option would start to reduce a few of its eloquence.
Categories and sub-categories may be treated the same as site navigation, which will be essentially what it is (i.e. product navigation). Common approaches are to make use of CSS fly-outs or in-place expanding panels (much like Windows Explorer) https://heelboy.com/.
Being an added touch, I love to put a reset icon near the search button. This lets the user 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 software is now fairly standardized these days. You've the merchandise name with a hyperlink back fully product description, the price tag on the in-patient product, and the amount the shopper desires to buy.
I love to add a small bin icon so shoppers can quickly remove items from their basket they no more want. You could also put in a sub-total in the bottom of the shopping cart software, but I don't think that is necessary since the user is going to be shown a sub-total through the checkout stage.
Another feature which improves usability is feedback messages. It's crucial that you let the user know when something happens as a result of the interaction with the machine, as an example; showing a brief message when something is added or taken from their cart https://www.pro-demo.ca/.
The merchandise details page - one of the biggest decisions here's whether to have a product listing page along with an in depth product description page. If you were just using a listing page for products, you would show short descriptions along with each product. The alternative would mean that a shopper has to click a product's summary in order to see its full details.
Generally I decide this based on what much information is going to be shown with a product. If it's only expected that a few lines will appear for every single product's description, then the product details page wont be needed. However, this may 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 efficient with regards to usability since a shopper gets all the information they want with fewer clicks.
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