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Research Methods and Usability Guidelines for Ecommerce Web Sites
Mary CzerwinskiMicrosoft Research
Note: Many of these slides came from a Keynote address by Kirsten Risden at Web99
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Key ecommerce ingredients
Most sources agreed that navigation clear content organization product information availability trust
Extras: personalized services and/or providing updated content or activities.
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Building trust Building Trust: What It Takes A clearly stated return policy A clearly stated security/encryption policy and
seals of approval from authoritative organizations
The ability to back out of a transaction Fast and easy navigation Source: eCommerce Trust Study, Cheskin
Research and Studio Archetype/Sapient, January 1999
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From browsers to buyers…. Seth Gordon recommends:
Make Buyers Feel Comfortable: good content and a personality
Get Users to the Goods: make the products easy to find and educate along the way
Make It Easy to Complete a Purchase: no roadblocks in your checkout tunnel
Build Buyer Loyalty: deliver on your promise and give reasons to return
From Builder.com Design section, January 25, 2000.
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Serco ecommerce guidelines Make it easy for users to enter the store Use a meaningful store layout and
product categories Ensure descriptive terms or pictures
are used Allow users to find and use search
facilities
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Serco ecommerce guidelines Provide meaningful and relevant search
results Make it clear whether items are available in
the on-line store Allow users to see what's in their shopping
basket Provide sufficient product information and
explain technical terms Clearly flag the financial security features of
the site
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How do we get there? Information Structure
Site organization should reflect user’s conceptual categorization of content
Can be very different from designer’s categorization of content
Derived empirically Card Sort
Need < ~200 distinct information types Find Task (a.k.a. reverse card sort)
If > ~200 distinct information types
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Card Sort Study
Cluster Analysis
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Find Study (a.k.a. Reverse Cart
Sort)
If more than 200 items, make initial design prototype….(s)
Record user paths through browse hierarchy of ecommerce site
Map out “confusability” Determine where problems are
and why
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Find Study
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“Reckless redundancy” reduces learnability
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Redundancy
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Information structure take-aways
For ease in finding information, ecommerce site organization must fit user’s conceptual categorization be easy to learn
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Presentation
Support and guide “scan and focus” visual processing through design Layout and graphical design Labels Text
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Layout and Graphical Design
Use mostly text and avoid pictures Provide landmarks Use simple configurations Use “blocking” appropriately Don’t break configurations up Make high contrast choices Avoid animations
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Use Text and Avoid Pictures
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At least . . .keep navigation elements away
from graphics
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Use clean, simple configurations
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Use “blocking” appropriately
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Use High Contrast ColorsClick Here
Avoid animations….
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Labels
Use distinctive, differentiating terms Concrete terms are more “attractive”
than abstract terms Put supporting detail in tool tips or
“look ahead” text Asking users to generate labels is
highly instructive
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Use tool tips or “look ahead” text
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User generated labels For groupings in card sort For content For subordinate categories
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Delivery Performance
First page download should be < 10 seconds on 28.8.
Secondary pages can be somewhat slower to download.
Resolution 60% of Media Metrix sample using 6X4 Number is changing slowly.
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Key Take-aways Match user’s conception of how
ecommerce domain is organized. Remember that you are supporting a
scan and focus approach to visual information processing.
Words can be worth thousands of pictures.
There is a high bar with little room to error when it comes to performance.