Posts tagged with 'usability'
While it may be a common security feature, masking passwords as users type them in may be causing login problems and lost business for websites, according to Jakob Nielsen.
Nielsen also argues that this isn't even necessary as a security feature, since users aren't normally overlooked when typing in passwords, while a determined snooper can simply watch your keystrokes anyway. I have my doubts though...
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by Graham Charlton
25 June 2009 09:25am
8 comments
Having sold social search engine Jellyfish to Microsoft in 2007, founders Brian Wiegand and Mark McGuire started work on Alice.com, which launched in beta this week.
Alice.com provides an online marketplace for users to buy a whole range of household goods; nappies, batteries, soap and more, and for CPG manufacturers to sell directly to customers. I've been trying the site out...
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by Graham Charlton
24 June 2009 12:47pm
4 comments
To minimise abandonment rates, a good checkout process should be able to deal smoothly with any unanswered questions before customers pay for their items.
I've been reading an article by Brendan Regan on the FutureNow blog, in which he looks at five questions that customers may have in their minds when they reach the shopping cart, though he is referring to the checkout process as a whole rather than just the shopping basket page.
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by Graham Charlton
23 June 2009 10:52am
2 comments
Furniture retailer Heal's relaunched its website recently, working with 10CMS and Venda to increase the company's online sales.
Heal's e-commerce head Mike Traill told Retail Week that the site has helped to increase conversions by 20%, and that the company is on course to drive 16% of its total sales via the web. I've been looking round the site to see what changes have been made...
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by Graham Charlton
19 June 2009 11:06am
1 comment
With the continued growth of online shopping, and with new pureplay
retailers entering the market looking for new opportunities, I would
expect that the biggest players would be leading the way in terms of
customer experience.
With the upcoming Online Fashion 100 event in London that I'll be
attending, I have taken a look at some of the biggest players in the
fashion industry, both pureplay retailers and high street retailers.
I
was particularly interested to look at key areas of their online
customer experience to find out:
1) how well some of these brands are
are delivering intelligent and meaningful cross-sell and up-sells to
drive higher average order values, and...
2) which retailers are potentially
losing sales due to a lack of focus on the full customer experience,
right through to the end of the checkout process.
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by Paul Rouke
15 June 2009 14:42pm
7 comments
Book retailer Borders has just redesigned its UK website, less than a year after last relaunching, and has also introduced a new range of eBooks.
There are some improvements, including new look product pages, more products displayed above the fold and clearer calls to action throughout the site.
There are a couple of issues on the site which hamper the user experience though...
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by Graham Charlton
02 June 2009 10:16am
1 comment
Epiqfashion.com is a website that has been launched to provide an outlet for suppliers to the now defunct Principles chain to sell the stock left over, which is estimated to be worth £5m.
This is a good way of dealing with all of this stock, but having had a look at the website, the execution could have been better. Here are a few suggested improvements...
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by Graham Charlton
01 June 2009 12:54pm
5 comments
If ever a retailer could get away with having exceptional cross-selling
and up-selling functionality, yet provide a new visitor checkout
process and web forms that break many usability rules, Amazon is certainly one of them. On the other hand one of Amazon's competitors, The Book
Depository, certainly appears to focus more on providing better
usability throughout the buying journey, especially for new customers.
Following the recent e-commerce training course I delivered for
Econsultancy, the usability benchmarking that is part of the course
threw up some really interesting market insights. Although many
retailers are featured in the course, providing examples of good and
bad e-tail usability and best practice, I purposely refrained from
including Amazon.
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by Paul Rouke
07 May 2009 10:10am
13 comments
Laura Ashley's website does have some good points, but having used it this week while searching for furniture, I think there are a few areas which could be improved upon.
I've come up with ten suggestions that would improve the usability of the Laura Ashley website...
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by Graham Charlton
30 April 2009 11:00am
10 comments
The websites of some of the UK's budget airlines are some of the worst to use, with four of them scoring 50% or less for usabilty, with Ryanair coming last with just 41%.
This is the verdict of Webcredible's Flights Online study, which looks at the websites of 20 airlines and travel agents in the UK. British Airways topped the table with 71%, closely followed by Expedia and Virgin Atlantic on 70%.
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by Graham Charlton
28 April 2009 12:00pm
6 comments
