The key to great usability for an web store is familiarity. People have now been buying goods online for a long time now, they be prepared to view a certain process unfold when shopping online, and when a developer makes radical departures from the status quo, tears may ensue (regardless of how good the designer's intentions may be). Does this mean a developer is locked into reproducing the same kind of shopping interface again and again? Definitely not, but conforming to certain standards is going to help the user.
This 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 instead to describe what is going to be most familiar to shoppers. Creativity and deviation from standard is an excellent thing online, otherwise things would get pretty boring. But being alert to the de facto standards on shopping websites lets you make informed decisions when taking a novel direction https://www.complasinternational.ie/.
The Login box - there's some variation in how shopping websites handle user log ins. Some sites require a person log in before creating a purchase, whereas others permit guest accounts. The obvious basics would be a username and password field. The sole pitfall here will be labeling the username field 'Email' ;.'Username' could be the more ubiquitous label, it helps cut-down on possible confusion which could arise if there have been say a newsletter subscription box near by.
The majority of the choices to be manufactured in this interface element relate solely to naming; can you call it 'Register' or 'Sign-Up'?, should you label your commit button 'Go' or 'Login'?, is the password recovery link called 'Password recovery' or 'Forgot your password?" ;.Whatever labels you select, you ought to favor brevity, generally nothing longer then three short words https://earsense.ie/.
Following a person logs in, there's a way to reclaim some precious screen real-estate by eliminating UI elements which aren't needed anymore. Showing the shopper's name helps to personalized the service and thus make it a little more friendly (nb. you might go with 'Welcome John Smith' as opposed to 'Logged in as: ...'). This is also a good place showing the 'My Account' and 'Logout' links since both these functions are logically linked to the shopper's account.
Incidentally, a 'Logout' link is somewhat redundant since closing the browser window serves the same purpose (assuming the session has expired), but a logout feature could help alleviate any security-related concerns a shopper may have.
The product search mechanism - the textbox for product searching is pretty straight-forward, but product browsing can go in several directions.
This works great if the category hierarchy is flat, it saves space plus you know the UI wont behave unexpectedly if the product list gets long. But what if you have sub-categories (e.g. Fishing->Hooks, Fishing->Knives, Fishing->Bait, etc)? Sure you could utilize a rush to point a sub-category, but the drop-list option would start to get rid of a few of its eloquence.
Categories and sub-categories may be treated exactly like site navigation, which can be essentially what it's (i.e. product navigation). Common approaches are to make use of CSS fly-outs or in-place expanding panels (much like Windows Explorer) https://heelboy.com/.
Being an added touch, I like to place a reset icon near the search button. Allowing the user 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 software is becoming fairly standardized these days. You've the product name with a hyperlink back to the full product description, the buying price of the individual product, and the quantity the shopper wants to buy.
I like to include a tiny bin icon so shoppers can certainly remove items from their basket they no more want. You might also add a sub-total at the end of the shopping cart software, but I don't think that is necessary since the user will undoubtedly be shown a sub-total during the checkout stage.
Another feature which improves usability is feedback messages. It's crucial that you let the user know when something happens consequently of these interaction with the system, for instance; showing a short message when something is added or removed from their cart https://www.pro-demo.ca/.
The product details page - among the biggest decisions here's whether to have a product listing page along with reveal product description page. If you were just utilizing a listing page for products, you would show short descriptions along side each product. The choice would mean that a shopper has to click a product's summary to be able to see its full details.
Generally I decide this based on what much information is going to be shown with a product. If it's only expected a few lines will be for every product's description, a product details page wont be needed. However, this may have significant SEO consequences since each product doesn't have it's own name come in the browser page title-bar. Maybe it's argued that the summary-on-listing page interface is far better with regards to usability since a shopper gets all the data they want with fewer clicks.
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