Entries from December 2008 ↓

According to a recent article by InternetRetailer.com, a survey of online retailers indicates most are redesigning their websites with an eye toward improving the bottom line.

I find this article and survey very interesting, for two key reasons. First, among the surveyed internet retailers there’s a clear and growing recognition of the value of usability testing, and second, the article itself touts usability testing as one of the best ways of getting better results from a web redesign project.

The article goes on to mention some surprising survey results, including:

“Improved site optimization is the top priority for 72.9% of merchants, followed by clearly organized home, category and product pages at 62.4%, better navigation at 49.4%, improved site search at 47.1% and faster checkout at 40%.”

Don’t you think it’s interesting that among the surveyed retailers, half listed optimization, organization of pages and better navigation as top priorities with their web redesign projects? I do! All of these benefit directly from usability testing and usability enhancements.

The Internet Retailer Survey:

The survey was e-mailed in October to subscribers of IRNewsLink, the Internet Retailer magazine’s e-newsletter, and all responses were collected and analyzed by Knowledge Marketing, which has partnered with Internet Retailer in a series of surveys of the e-retailing industry. A total of 95 responses were received, including 45 web-only retailers, 25 chain store retailers, 14 consumer brand manufacturers and 11 catalog companies.

Usability Mentioned by 1/3 of Testers:

What fascinated me are the numbers associated with usability testing: 78% of retailers reported they test their website. Of those that test their website, 36.7% conduct one-on-one testing (presumably usability testing). Other testing choices were A/B testing at 40%, Focus groups at 20% and Multivariate testing at 3.3%.

What’s also interesting is the internet retailer’s attitudes about customer feedback. According to the survey, 91.2% consider gathering feedback on their next redesign from customers as being either somewhat or very important. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I want to shop at an online store where the internet retailer considers gathering customer feedback unimportant! Whatever happened to the customer is always right! Again, usability testing would clearly benefit those retailers looking for actionable feedback from their customers.

There are other important clues into the minds of internet retailers in this study, including the fact that even though the number one item they want to add to their sites this year is video or streaming media (43.3%), a whopping 54% of those that report already using video on their websites indicate that video makes no difference in increasing the average ticket for shoppers! Worse, another 25% of retailers report the average ticket only increased by 10% or less! Clearly, adding video to an internet retail site without considering the usability of the shopping experience adds little to no value.

In terms of what’s keeping the surveyed internet retailers up at night worrying, they report that their current designs biggest drawbacks are; Limited personalization (61.2%), outdated design and graphics on home, category and product pages (49.4%), no interactive applications (45.9%) and no or limited advanced features or functions (41.2%). A whopping 34.1% listed poor navigation as the biggest drawback to their current design! All of these drawbacks are directly improved with usability testing and usability optimizations.

Usability Testing, the Best Way to Get Better Results:

I find this quote interesting, in which usability testing is featured:

“”One of the best ways retailers can get better results from their next redesign is by building in some form of usability testing,” Kurani says. “By conducting frequent tests, retailers will get a clear sense of how their customers are reacting to new design elements. They can then implement the treatments that delivered the best results.”

Usability testing can also help retailers do a better job of deploying video, rich media and customer reviews.”

Did you notice the last sentence? If you are a usability practitioner, then you better be able to know how to test and optimize rich media, including video, customer review applications and online community tools.

If you’re interested in learning more about the survey results read the full InternetRetailer.com web redesign article, I think you’ll find it full of interesting information, whether you’re an internet retailer or usability practitioner.

Christmas, a Time for Thinking about Toys, Presents and Bad Shopping Cart Usability

It’s the day before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, except for Craig as he thought about usability issues of shopping baskets.

According to a November 2008 article by Joanna Bawa, entitled “Poor Shopping Basket Usability will hinder Christmas Rush,” I’m not the only one who should be up nights worrying about bad user experiences.

According to the article:

“The latest e-retail benchmarking study from eDigitalResearch has identified customer service and online shopping basket usability as the two key areas where online retailers need to improve in order to capitalise on customer loyalty and online transactions.”

For those of you in the good ‘ol USA, shopping basket = shopping cart, and the same issues apparently dogging UK websites can and do happen across the Pond as they say, right over here.

The article continues,

“Managing the increasing levels of customer service contact (both telephone and email) is creating a challenge for many e-retailers. Although the majority of those surveyed by eDigitalResearch said that they expect a response within 24 hours of sending an email, many businesses are leaving customers frustrated by being unable to provide such a service. It is clearly imperative that this is improved upon; otherwise brand loyalty will be at risk.

The other aspect of e-commerce that the survey identified as cause for customer complaint was poor functionality of the shopping basket process and delivery options. The eRetail study identified Figleaves.com as the overall leader with top league table performance in a number of key performance areas including search functionality, product descriptions shopping basket usability and purchase and delivery fulfilment.”

It’s probably a bit late now, after all there’s only about a half-day to Christmas (depending on what time zone you live in), but it’s never too late to think about shopping basket usability, and how to improve it. So with the whole “spirit of giving” thing going on, I’ll share with you three ideas to quickly and simply identify where usability issues may be causing problems with your shopping basket or cart. Feel free to use these ideas during your family’s Christmas celebration, or if that feels a bit too work-related and not in the spirit of the season, just hold off on these until you get back to work:

Three Quick Tips to Improving Shopping Basket Usability

1. Do a Quick & Dirty Usability Test:
   Ask you neighbor, a friend or relative to give you a gift, a free gift of usability testing. Ask them to try to order something on your website, using your shopping basket. No, they don’t have to complete the process, but ask them to go as far as they can without actually ordering the product. Observe (force yourself to remain calm and quiet) as they go through the process. Ask them their opinions of whether the experience met their expectations, or not. And if not, ask them where they think the problems were. Do three of these quick and dirty usability tests, using people who would typically shop your site, and you’ll be armed with more than enough usability information to follow-up with after you get back to work.

2. Read your customer service emails or listen to calls:
   If you have access to customer service emails or recorded phone calls, this is a treasure-trove of usability presents for you. At TouchCommerce, I have access to hundreds of thousands of chat transcripts (we’re in the live sales chat business, it’s not a creepy spy thing or anything). Read what your actual customers have to say, you’ll find it easy to find lots of comments about all kinds of usability issues. However, remember that your customers don’t know exactly what went wrong, so sometimes it’s necessary to take educated guesses as to where the problems are. Recorded calls with customers seeking customer service help while trying to order will be another goldmine of usability presents for you.
3. Analyze Top Exit Pages by Percentage, not Number of Exits:
   If you have access to your web statistics data, from Hitbox or Webtrends or Omniture or whatever, prioritize where your problems lurk by looking at the numbers. The key thing to consider is on which page or step in your ordering process is the Percentage of loss the greatest. Why percentage? Because almost all order flows have much greater loss at the beginning of the process vs near the end of the process. Thus, if your percentage of loss is highest right near the final steps in the ordering process, you may wish to focus there first, to try to have the biggest impact on conversion.

Conclusion: Give Yourself a Usability Gift

So, celebrate Christmas (if you’re of the Christmas celebrating persuasion) by giving your shopping basket the gift of usability. You’ll feel better, your customers will feel better and you’ll have that warm and fuzzy feeling of knowing you’re doing something to make a difference.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all!

For more information:
Read the Usability News Article about Poor Shopping Basket Usability
Read the eDigitalResearch News Release

Interaction Elasticity and the Impact on Usability

Jakob Nielsen’s latest Alertbox on Interaction Elasticity is a very interesting read. If you’ve not read it yet I urge you to read it.

If you’re responsible for an eCommerce website then pay close attention, my post impacts you even more (see below)!

According to Nielsen, we always want to use numeric rules for usability questions, questions such as:

• How many clicks is the right number to a product page?
• How many links is the right amount in a navigation menu?
• How many seconds will someone wait before a slow download makes them exit?

I know I’ve asked those exact questions before. Maybe you have too. According to Nielsen, there is no single number that answers those questions, or questions like them.

Elasticity – Demand Drops as Cost Increases

Nielsen introduces the concept of Elasticity, which in Economics is usually attached to demand and price. The idea is there is no single price at which people will suddenly decide to buy, or not buy a product. This is because demand (or motivation) impacts the elasticity or willingness of a person’s decision to buy.

According to Nielsen, this same concept can be applied to usability. The motivation of the person using a website and the cost they have to pay in interacting with the site will impact how elastic that person is to usability issues on the site.

If motivation to use the website is high, then you can say that person has lower elasticity and therefore will probably be more likely to put up with an annoying experience. If the motivation to use the website is low, then you can say that person has higher elasticity and will be much more likely to abandon the site if any problems, even minor ones, are encountered. By the way, this is NOT to imply that low elasticity means you don’t have to make your site as usable as possible. Maximizing the usability adds value by generating incremental action on your site.

eCommerce Ramifications of Interaction Elasticity

Although everyone must consider the ramifications of interaction elasticity, eCommerce sites have extra issues to deal with. Why? Because interaction elasticity will vary depending on where in the process of purchasing your customer is.

If your customer is just researching, and is visiting your high level marketing pages, then you can assume that customer’s elasticity is higher, and it’s more likely for your customer to abandon your website if presented with annoyances or problems.

Likewise, if your customer is now going through the order process and is investing time and energy on it then elasticity is probably much lower, meaning it’s more likely your customer will put up with a little more annoyances or problems before leaving. This does NOT mean you can ignore or marginalize issues in your order flow! Rather, the implication is you must also focus with the same concern on your higher level marketing pages as you show with your order flow pages.

If ever you were looking for a reason to increase usability testing of the higher level marketing pages in your website, this is it. The error many eCommerce website owners make is treating their higher level marketing pages like static pages, or just content dumps, and only changing content without examining and optimizing function.

Need a leg-up on your competition? Carefully examine the usability and functionality of your high level marketing pages with a detailed usability test, knowing that finding and fixing minor annoyances or functional issues could have beneficial impact on your conversion.