The key to great usability for an online shop is familiarity. People have now been buying goods online for decades now, they be prepared to see a certain process unfold when shopping online, and when a custom makes radical departures from the status quo, tears may ensue (regardless of how good the designer's intentions may be). Does this mean a custom is locked into reproducing the same old shopping interface again and again? Definitely not, but conforming to certain standards will help the user.
This short article analyzes the usability of components commonly found within most shopping website (e.g. the cart, the checkout process, etc). The theory isn't so much to be prescriptive and set down hard and fast rules, but rather to spell it out what will be most familiar to shoppers. Creativity and deviation from standard is a great thing online, otherwise things would get pretty boring. But being conscious of the de facto standards on shopping websites lets you make informed decisions when going for a novel direction https://www.complasinternational.ie/.
The Login box - there is some variation in how shopping websites deal with user log ins. Some sites require a person sign in before building a purchase, whereas others enable guest accounts. Well-known basics will be a username and password field. The only pitfall here could be labeling the username field 'Email' ;.'Username' is the more ubiquitous label, it can help cut-down on possible confusion which may arise if there have been say a newsletter subscription box near by.
All the choices to be produced in this interface element relate to naming; do you call it 'Register' or 'Sign-Up'?, should you label your commit button 'Go' or 'Login'?, is your password recovery link called 'Password recovery' or 'Forgot your password?" ;.Whatever labels you choose, you must favor brevity, generally nothing longer then three short words https://earsense.ie/.
Following a person logs in, there is an opportunity to reclaim some precious screen property by removing UI elements which aren't needed anymore. Showing the shopper's name helps to personalized the service and thus allow it to be a bit more friendly (nb. you can choose 'Welcome John Smith' as opposed to 'Logged in as: ...'). This is also a good place to show the 'My Account' and 'Logout' links since both these functions are logically linked to the shopper's account.
In addition, a 'Logout' link is somewhat redundant since closing the browser window serves the same purpose (assuming the session has expired), but a logout feature may help alleviate any security-related concerns a shopper may have.
The item search mechanism - the textbox for product searching is pretty straight-forward, but product browsing can go in a number of directions.
This works great if the category hierarchy is flat, it saves space plus you realize the UI wont behave unexpectedly if the product list gets long. But what when you yourself have sub-categories (e.g. Fishing->Hooks, Fishing->Knives, Fishing->Bait, etc)? Sure you can use a rush to indicate a sub-category, but the drop-list option would start to lose a number of its eloquence.
Categories and sub-categories can be treated exactly like site navigation, which is essentially what it's (i.e. product navigation). Common approaches are to use CSS fly-outs or in-place expanding panels (much like Windows Explorer) https://heelboy.com/.
Being an added touch, I prefer to put a reset icon near the search button. This lets the consumer return the searching mechanism to its initial state without having to go all the way to the browser refresh button or press the F5 key.
The shopping basket - the structure of a shopping cart is now fairly standardized these days. You've the product name with a hyperlink back to the full product description, the price tag on the in-patient product, and the amount the shopper wants to buy.
I prefer to incorporate a tiny bin icon so shoppers can easily remove items from their basket they no further want. You might also put in a sub-total in the bottom of the shopping cart, but I don't think that is necessary since the consumer will be shown a sub-total during the checkout stage.
Another feature which improves usability is feedback messages. It's important to let the consumer know when something happens as a result of the interaction with the machine, for example; showing a brief message when something is added or taken from their cart https://www.pro-demo.ca/.
The item details page - among the biggest decisions listed here is whether to truly have a product listing page in addition to a detailed product description page. If you're just utilizing a listing page for products, you would show short descriptions along side each product. The choice would signify a shopper needs to click a product's summary to be able to see its full details.
Generally I decide this based how much information will be shown with a product. If it's only expected a few lines will be for each product's description, then the product details page wont be needed. However, this might have significant SEO consequences since each product doesn't have it's own name can be found in the browser page title-bar. Maybe it's argued that the summary-on-listing page interface is more efficient in terms of usability since a shopper gets all the data they need with fewer clicks.
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