Posts tagged with 'usability'
At TechCrunch’s Geek ‘n Rolla event last week, I managed to have a quick chat with Leisa Reichelt from Disambiguity, following her great presentation about “Why you can’t NOT afford good user experience”.
Although the presentation was geared up towards digital start-ups, our conversation crossed over into the fact that usability is often overlooked by most small business with an online presence, usually due to a combination of a lack of understanding, time and resources.
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by Jake Hird
28 April 2009 10:30am
3 comments
Several online retailers, including ASOS, Argos and JD Sports, have recently launched clearance sites to provide an outlet for older stock, and appeal to bargain hungry web shoppers.
Debenhams is the latest retailer to follow this trend; yesterday it launched Outlet, which sells discounted products all year round. I've been trying the site out...
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by Graham Charlton
22 April 2009 12:05pm
1 comment
Having seemingly taken its time to get its online strategy together, shoe retailer Clarks finally launched its first transactional website at the end of last year.
I had previously highlighted Clarks as an example of a company that was failing to make to most of the web by not offering its product range online, so I've been having a look at the new site from a user experience perspective...
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by Graham Charlton
15 April 2009 13:24pm
8 comments
Having looked at whether some of the UK's most popular online retailers are still making customers register before they checkout a couple of weeks ago, I'm now going to look at the different options for dealing with the issue.
While I'm not in favour of sites making registration compulsory before entering the checkout, user registration does have its advantages; retailers can use the information to customise future emails, while from the customer’s point of view, logging in to the site avoids having to type in all their delivery and payment details again, making subsequent purchases smoother.
So what is the best way for e-tailers to deal with registration? I've been looking at a few different approaches to the issue...
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by Graham Charlton
08 April 2009 11:05am
7 comments
Charities and other non-profit organisations are missing out on online donations because they are not explaining clearly enough to visitors their aims and how they intend to use the money when they receive it.
Nielsen has been carrying out user testing of 23 non-profit websites in the US, giving users the task of choosing recipients by comparing a couple of sites in similar categories e.g. American Red Cross and Habitat for Humanity, and actually making a donation.
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by Graham Charlton
30 March 2009 16:13pm
0 comments
Making people register before they can make a purchase is a needless obstacle to put in front of customers, and has been shown in various surveys to be something that web shoppers dislike, and cite as a reason for checkout abandonment.
Plenty of retailers are still insisting on customer registration though, despite the potential for reducing abandonment rates and increasing profits by removing this step.
I've been having a look at some of the top e-commerce sites in the UK to see how many are still insisting on making shoppers register...
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by Graham Charlton
26 March 2009 09:30am
18 comments
Chris Lake wrote about 50 ways to annoy web users on Monday, which included things like pop-up ads, slow loading pages, unreadable text, and other terrible crimes against usability.
One of the biggest offences for me is the automatic playing of audio when you arrive at a webpage, and I've found a pretty sorry example of this on the Next homepage today.
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by Graham Charlton
25 March 2009 11:15am
7 comments
While regular drop-down menus on websites can be bad from a user experience perspective, bigger versions can improve usability by overcoming the drawbacks and allowing users to see all the options at once without scrolling.
Usability guru Jakob Nielsen makes this point in his latest Alertbox post, recommending the use of such menus to improve the user experience, as well as providing some tips on making 'mega drop-downs' more user friendly. I've been looking at a few examples of drop-down menus...
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by Graham Charlton
24 March 2009 09:27am
8 comments
I experienced a few issues this morning while browsing around on the
web. I’m still amazed by some of the issues I chance upon in an average
day, often on mainstream media websites.
As such I’ve compiled,
in about an hour and a half, a list of 50 things that annoy me. Some of
these things are plain bad design, while others are strategically
dubious. One or two are to be avoided like a bad smell.
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by Chris Lake
23 March 2009 17:05pm
27 comments
Lastminute.com recently launched a new version of its website in the UK and France, with new sites for the rest of Europe to follow.
I've been talking to Lastminute.com's head of customer experience Leah Russell about the thinking behind the new site, and the challenges of providing a usable website for different markets across Europe.
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by Graham Charlton
06 March 2009 09:11am
0 comments
