We have a retail site and are trying to improve our Cart Completion rates. We got some great advise from people from this forum last week. One suggestion was to improve the way out NEXT buttons stand out. Besides looking at the wording we also started thinking about colour and design. Anybody suggestions. Which colours work best? Our branding is primarily Red on a White background and we are looking at colours that will complement that but also draw peoples eye and call them to action.

hi, Jim,

I like Paul's suggestions.

I've found having the most important 'conversion' button on the page in a contrasting colour can increase results. this draws the eye directly to the button, removes any ambiguity, & puts the customer in the mind of "ok, that's where I'm going".

eg, your scheme is red & white, so you might want to test having the 'checkout now'/'continue' buttons in royal blue (which shouldn't clash nastily with your scheme). if you have the ability to split test this, you should fairly quickly see what works.

Paul,

Thanks for the advice - loads to think about. We'll definitley be doing some testing.

Yours,

On 08:29:56 28 November 2006 PaulRouke wrote:

Hi Jim,

I've quickly mocked up a couple of quick buttons based on your current design style which should give you an indication of what I was referring to.

You can see the screengrabs at http://www.prwd.co.uk/reid-furniture

These screens just cover the button issue - due to the number and variety of suggestions testing will need to be carried out on each suggestion to determine which has the most positive impact on your current abandonment rates. Combined you should definetly see a significant impact based on my experience.

 If you'd like some more ideas and input from me you can email me direct at .

Cheers, Paul

I agree on the the use of green. I wanted to go for a button wih a green background but it doesn't fit with the branding. I like the green font though this mught just be a beter idea. Thanks.

On 19:45:36 28 November 2006 laurazucchetti wrote:

Hi Jim

Paul is right about testing, this will definitely have to be part of you process, so you can see if the button change is effective.

One thing to note about color, is the use of red for buttons. I generally reserve all red, yellow and green colours for associating certain messages.

Red - warning or error (user: proceed with care)
Yellow - informative or prompt (user feels: neutral)
Green - go or action (user feels: positive action)

I am not suggesting all your 'go' buttons should be green, I just think it's important to look at what is currently used in interface design and use these concepts when designing functional/interactive sites such as an e-commerce sites.

This is how I would approach the problem.

I would make the add to cart button like this:

http://www.zucchetti.co.uk/linked-images/addtocart.jpg

It sets the buttons apart from the rest of the interface without standing out like a sore thumb. It's important to make buttons look clickable and have a good font size.

For the shopping basket, you can now, at this crucial point, where the user will start the checkout process, introduce the positive colour of green:

http://www.zucchetti.co.uk/linked-images/checkout.jpg

You now instantly see the checkout now button very clearly and it's position is directly below the Total price to be the next hing the user sees after checking the Total price. The other 4 buttons sit nicely by the side and are not a distraction. The icons you had on those 4 buttons were also very nice aids. I would keep them on the new designs.

I hope my few pennies worth is some help. If in doubt test, test and test. Good luck. :)

We are experimenting with Clickdensity at the moment - although we are still fighting to get the analysis lined up wth the website. Should give us some useful incite. I can already see a lot of clicks on the colour choice thumbnails which are not links at present. I haven't looked at it yet but presumably, numbers get quite low when you get down to basket level and checkout as each page is dynamic. How useful is the analysis here?

On 15:08:24 29 November 2006 dzambonini wrote:

Shameless plug this, but it is extremely relevant, honestly!

Given what you're trying to achieve, you should definitely try out the free trial of clickdensity (http://www.clickdensity.com), which will:

1. Tell you which aspects of your design/page are/aren't effective (e.g. buttons)
2. Very easily let you A/B test different versions of elements on the page (e.g. buttons), and compare click-throughs, etc.
   

Dan

On 19:45:36 28 November 2006 laurazucchetti wrote:

Hi Jim

Paul is right about testing, this will definitely have to be part of you process, so you can see if the button change is effective.

[snip]