Ad Conversion Rate Influenced by Time (Not Click Rate)

Time is an important design variable to understand. Your user experience is effected by it no matter what user experience you are serving up and the rules are different for every context. For example, the "three click rule" (users must get to their destination within three clicks) applies to e-commerce primarily but not to mortgage education, financial services usability or reading the New York Times online.

Spillers, Frank. Demystifying Usability (2004). Design>Web Design>User Experience>E Commerce

Ads Are Here To Stay: Planning For Ad Placement

Site advertisements can interfere with content and disrupt layout. Yet they are most often part of website requirements, forcing IAs to come up with strategies for incorportating them. Is there a graceful way to handle ads online?

Kirtland, Alex. Boxes and Arrows (2005). Design>Web Design>Marketing>E Commerce

Amazon, You Just Lost $82.62

The purpose of this article is to openly display my disgust with Amazon and to discuss the implications. On Monday, 11-June-2000, I ordered a gift certificate from Amazon.com. I was going to use the certificate for Father's Day, however Amazon failed to send the certificate in time. So, I drove to Barnes and Noble, bought some books, and bought a gift certificate. Amazon just lost $82.62.

Rhodes, John S. WebWord (2001). Design>Web Design>Usability>E Commerce

Amazon: No Longer the Role Model for E-Commerce Design

Many design elements work for Amazon.com mainly because of its status as the world's largest and most established e-commerce site. Normal sites should not copy Amazon's design.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2005). Design>Web Design>E Commerce>Usability

And Then There Were Adwords... An Introduction

If you have been looking into Internet marketing, you have probably seen Adwords mentioned now and again. Why don’t we cover the basics of the program. Adwords is the name of the pay-per-click system offered by Google on its search engine.

Pires, Halstatt. Ezine Articles (2006). Articles>Web Design>E Commerce>Search

Are the Product Lists on Your Site Reducing Sales?  

You can increase sales on your site as much as 225% by offering sufficient product information to your customers at the time they need it. One way to do this is to develop product lists that don't require shoppers to bounce back-and-forth between the list and individual product pages.

User Interface Engineering (2004). Design>Web Design>Usability>E Commerce

B2B Usability

User testing shows that business-to-business websites have substantially lower usability than mainstream consumer sites. If they want to convert more prospects into leads, B2B sites should follow more guidelines and make it easier for prospects to research their offerings.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2006). Design>Web Design>Usability>E Commerce

Beating the Checkout Blues

Depending on which research report you read, roughly 25% to 75% of online shoppers abandon their shopping carts before consummating the deal. Despite the disparity in numbers, all the research firms agree on one thing: that's way too many.

Greenwood, Wayne. Cooper Interaction Design (2001). Design>Web Design>Usability>E Commerce

Better Web Forms: Redesigning eBay's Registration

Even the smallest adjustments to a page's design, layout, and content can make a major improvement in the overall quality of the page. Taking a fresh look at sections of a site that have been ignored for a while can give you an entirely new perspective. By making small incremental changes and testing them against real world scenarios, we can more easily focus on continuous improvement without going back to square one every time.

Dimon, Garrett. Digital Web Magazine (2007). Design>Web Design>Forms>E Commerce

Beyond Functionality

Some organisations still take a function-centric approach to their online transactions with customers. Functionality is king, and interactions with the customer are seen as secondary.

Usability by Design (2005). Design>Web Design>Usability>E Commerce

Beyond the Buy Button in E-Commerce

The best way for e-commerce sites to increase subsequent orders is to treat customers well after they place their initial order.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2004). Design>Web Design>Usability>E Commerce

Big Boxes and Shoppertainment: More Lessons for Web Design from Mall and Retail Design

Explores some tactical issues in structuring and presenting content.

Carliner, Saul. Boxes and Arrows (2003). Design>Web Design>E Commerce

Build a Shopping Cart Application Using XForms

This tutorial focuses on key aspects of the W3C XForms 1.0 standard to produce a fully functional Web-based shopping cart. With this approach, the reader will get a good start at creating real-world applications with XForms, without having to learn the entire XForms specification.

Speicher, Steve K., Keith Wells, Jan J. Kratky and Kevin Kelly. IBM (2007). Design>Web Design>E Commerce>XForms

Can Internet Shoppers Be Described by Personality Traits?

Personality traits are used to describe the strong consistencies that people demonstrate in their behavior across time and situations. People display behaviors that fall into a continuum of trait extremes. This behavior can be malleable to the situation such as the differences in behaviors across various shopping venues. For example, while consumers may not hesitate to give their credit card to a cashier or give personal or credit card information over the phone, research has shown that many consumers are concerned with online security. Therefore, this study explores Internet purchasing behaviors and the following personality traits: Vigilance and Openness to Change.

Copas, Gina M. Usability News (2003). Design>Web Design>E Commerce

The Case Against Micropayments

Micropayments are back, at least in theory, thanks to P2P. Micropayments are an idea with a long history and a disputed definition - as the W3C micropayment working group puts it, '... there is no clear definition of a 'Web micropayment' that encompasses all systems,' but in its broadest definition, the word micropayment refers to 'low-value electronic financial transactions.'

Shirky, Clay. OpenP2P (2000). Design>Web Design>E Commerce>Micropayments

Checking Out or Getting Out? Reasons for Shopping Cart Abandonment

People used to abandon online shopping carts because they didn't understand how online shopping works. Now, it's because they do.

Janisch, Troy. Icon Interactive. Design>Web Design>E Commerce>User Centered Design

Chinese Banks Homepage Usability Research Report

The homepages of three leading Chinese retail banks are assessed for their usability.

Zhao, Ming. uiGarden (2006). Articles>Web Design>Usability>E Commerce

Components of E-Commerce    

This article explains what you need to setup an ecommerce business starting with the basics of business and leading to the new technology of e-commerce. Even though there has been many e-businesses that have failed recently, e-commerce is growing at a record pace. Many businesses are trying to setup store fronts in cyberspace, and many more are creating businesses for the sole purpose of selling stuff on the web.

Wokosin, Linda. STC Proceedings (2002). Design>Web Design>E Commerce

The Conversion Rate

Why is usability such an important factor in the success of e-business developments? A key concept in understanding the value of usability is often called the 'conversion rate'. Simply put, it represents the percentage of unique visitors who go on to interact with the site in a pre-defined way. Usually this means make a purchase, but depending on the site in question it could mean registering for more information, placing a bet or opening an account. Conversion rates are usually low. That isn't particularly surprising - they are low in almost any industry, online or offline. What is particularly relevant in the context of usability is the huge benefits that a small change in the rate can offer.

Farrell, Tom. Frontend Infocentre (2001). Design>Web Design>E Commerce

Converting Visitors to Buyers

Converting visitors to buyers can be easily achieved by following some basic rules of conversion.

Townes, Frederick. Webcredible (2007). Design>Web Design>Usability>E Commerce

Correlating Web-User Data

The statistical term 'correlation' has found its way into popular business language. Often, though, no measurement of correlation has actually taken place. That's too bad. Because there's probably a correlation between measuring correlation and increasing revenue.

Allen, Cliff. Allen.com (2001). Design>Web Design>E Commerce>Log Analysis

Critical Design Factors For Successful E-Commerce Systems  

The primary goal of this paper is to identify critical design factors that have substantial effects on the performance of e-commerce systems. This paper presents a theoretical model that examines the relationships among detailed design factors, perceived quality level and ®nal performance of e-commerce systems. Two consecutive empirical studies were conducted to verify the theoretical model. Results from these studies reveal that the information phase among four transaction phases was the most in¯uential in the ®nal performance of e-commerce systems. Among the myriad design factors related to the information phase, product-related information, depth and variety of the system structure, variety of list view for products, consistency of product and background presentation, and variety of presentation for product information were all found to be closely related to the perceived quality level. This paper ends with the theoretical and practical implications of the study results.

Kim, Jinwoo and Jungwon Lee. Yonsei University (2002). Design>Web Design>E Commerce

Customer Service In Good Form

Online product registration forms can make customer service easier for the manufacturer and more valuable to the customer.

Allen, Cliff. Allen.com (2001). Design>Web Design>Forms>E Commerce

Cybermarketing in English and German: Observations on the Multilingual Web Site of a Finnish Company  

Cybermarketing is a recent aspect of marketing strategy, which involves establishing company presence in cyberspace, in other words on the World Wide Web, or on the Internet. The instrument used in cybermarketing is the company web site - or the company home page as it was first called. The company web site is, likewise, a new concept; the first, most innovative business enterprises only established their web site presence in the second half of the 1990s. Indeed, business professionals have been slower than academics in adopting the communication potentials incorporated in electronic media on the whole, including the World Wide Web and the Internet.

Yli-Jokipii, Hilkka M. Hogskolen i Ostfold (2001). Careers>Web Design>Localization>E Commerce

Deceivingly Strong Information Scent Costs Sales

Users will often overlook the actual location of information or products if another website area seems like the perfect place to look. Cross-references and clear labels alleviate this problem.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2004). Design>Web Design>Usability>E Commerce