Hi! I’m Gabriel Castro and today is my first post on the blog. I have 5 years of experience in eCommerce and more than 15 years in the technology sector. In this and upcoming posts I’ll talk about usability and user experience (UX).
Usability and user experience directly affect the success of our online store.
They’re elements you must always consider to deliver a unique user experience. You need to focus your business on your customers’ needs and expectations.
Goal: sell
Whenever we talk about an eCommerce website, remember that the main goal is to sell. It seems obvious, but often it isn’t, because decisions or changes are made that hurt the site’s conversion rate.
Usability and user experience
Usability is directly related to user experience (UX), a broader concept that requires a joint effort from many departments in the company (Marketing, Design, IT, Customer Service, Sales, After-Sales, etc.).
Usability is limited to the goals set when using a website, while user experience refers to how users perceive their interaction with the site (design, human factors, accessibility, sales, usability, etc.).
Here are some of the elements to consider to improve usability and user experience in your online store:
1- Sign-up
It’s important to keep sign-up as simple as possible. The sign-up form should include only the minimum required fields. Often an email and password are enough. If you need more information later, you can ask for it at the right time. Keep in mind that asking for a lot of information is a barrier to users completing sign-up.
2- Security
Although eCommerce is increasingly common among people of all ages, keep in mind that some people still have doubts or reservations about buying online. We need to work so that when they’re on our website they feel it’s a safe and trustworthy place to buy. Besides technical elements such as SSL certificates or trust seals, we should add other elements that convey security, such as: listing different contact options, explaining the return policy, terms of sale, company information, shipping costs, FAQs, etc.
All these elements will quickly clear up any doubts users have when buying.
3- Call to action
We need to design effective call-to-action buttons that increase our conversion rate and improve our website’s usability.
They’re often not given much importance, and sometimes design or corporate image takes priority.
When designing buttons we must consider size, color, typography, text, placement on the page, etc. But most importantly, you can measure their effectiveness and run tests to find out which options work best, then optimize them to boost sales.
4- Related products
You can help customers during the buying process by offering products that complement the one they’re viewing on the product page or during checkout.
This lets us increase the average order value and guide users to the best purchase.
There are some very effective paid tools that offer these features.
5- Search
It’s fair to say this is a vital feature for any online store, because it lets users find the products they want quickly and effectively.
It’s usually placed somewhere highly visible (header, right-hand side) and kept fixed within the site’s structure so users can easily use it.
There are more advanced implementation options (faceted search) and services that offer a very complete solution (dynamic results, multilingual, cross-platform, synonyms, phonetic search, typo tolerance, etc.).
As I mentioned earlier, online, everything is measurable.
This lets us know what really works and gets the best results for our online business.
Always keep in mind that what’s effective is usable.
What do you think?
