Nickeled-and-Dimed to Death

A few years ago, experts thought a new pricing model would sweep the Internet in which users would gladly pay a few cents a page for the content that they liked. It was a costly misjudgment.

Anders, George. Fast Company (2001). Design>Web Design>E Commerce>Micropayments

Online Persuasion: Seven Ways to Persuade People to Buy

Persuading people to do what you want them to do on your website isn't as hard as you think. Read through these top tips and so your online conversion rates can soar!

Halabi, Lisa. Webcredible (2008). Design>Web Design>Usability>E Commerce

The Persuasive Power of Design Elements on an E-Commerce Web Site    

There was $3 billion [USD] lost on the Web last year because of poor design—sites not realizing that if they just make it easier for the consumer to buy, they'll make more sales'. James Daly, editor-in-chief of Business 2.0, echoed a similar view: 'Design is the channel for bringing a new spirit into an online shop ... creative, customer-centric, humanizing design will ultimately distinguish the winners from the losers.' Because the computer interface is often the only contact the customer has with an online company, good Web design is undoubtedly key to a company's success.

Winn, Wendy and Kati Beck. Technical Communication Online (2002). Design>Web Design>E Commerce

Preparing for the Holiday Shopping Season

Reduce the bounce rate for organic landing pages, collect data to manage PPC for maximum ROI, and take five other steps to maximize your site's holiday sales potential before it's too late.

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

Putting a Face on B2B Websites

How do you lead your business-to-business clients down the right path without sacrificing every design, usability, and information design principle you’ve ever learned? And how do you make these websites engaging for users? Nancy Carl offers advice for creating successful B2B websites.

Carl, Nancy. Boxes and Arrows (2002). Design>Web Design>Usability>E Commerce

RBC Royal Bank’s Online Banking Initiatives: Usable Design Now and in the Future

Discuss their initiative to make user-centered design a central part of RBC Royal Bank's Online Banking.

Schaffer, Eric M., Carolyn Burke and Nicole Poirer. Human Factors International (2006). Presentations>Usability>Web Design>E Commerce

Security and Trust: Taking Care of the Human Factor

In the e-business chain, the last link that needs to be convinced of the security of an online transaction is the end-user. That is why this article puts forward a user-centred perspective of the problem of trust in online payments, derived from the discipline of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). We will first offer a general account of e-commerce system design, showing that there is more to trust than only security. The last part gives some recommendations on what can be done to increase consumers' trust.

Egger, Florian N. and D. Abrazhevich. ECommUse (2001). Design>Web Design>E Commerce>Usability

Show Prices for Common Scenarios

B2B sites often have overly complex pricing structures or can't show prices at all. To help prospects with early research, list representative cases and their prices.

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

The Slow Tail: Time Lag Between Visiting and Buying

Users often convert to buyers long after their initial visit to a website. A full 5% of orders occur more than four weeks after users click on search engine ads.

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

Supporting Customers' Decision-Making Process

When people buy things, they engage in a decision-making process. Research shows that one of the major problems with commerce sites is that they fail in supporting the customers in this process. By understanding their needs and concerns as they progress through the decision-making cycle, we can build better and more successful commerce sites.

Olsen, Henrik. GUUUI (2003). Design>Web Design>User Centered Design>E Commerce

The Best and The Rest: Rating Web Developers

When you've got the budget to implement a web project, there is no shortage of vendors who want to be your friend. But how do you determine the best choice?

Janisch, Troy. Icon Interactive (2005). Articles>Internet>E Commerce>Web Design

Top Ten Mistakes of Shopping Cart Design Revisited: A Survey of 500 Top E-Commerce Websites

A list of common mistakes with e-commerce shopping cart design were identified in a previous issue of Usability News. This article revisits that list and reviews how 500 of the top Internet retail sites of today implemented their shopping cart design.

Naidu, Shivashankar and Barbara S. Chaparro. Usability News (2007). Design>Web Design>E Commerce>Usability

Toward the Optimal Link Structure of the Cyber Shopping Mall  

This study aims at identifying the optimal link structure, which is an essential requirement for convenient and pleasant cyber-shopping. To achieve the goal, this paper presents a research framework in which different types of links are hypothesized to cause different patterns of customer navigation, which in turn is expected to influence cognitive convenience and emotional pleasure of cyber shopping. Based on two dimensions of links, link direction and link target, various links are classified into five types; NBR(Neighborhood), PAR(Parent), TOP, NEP(Nephew), and IND (Index). Two consecutive experiments were conducted in order to evaluate the cognitive and emotional usability of various combinations of the five link types. Experimental results clearly indicated that different combinations of link types influenced customers’ navigation patterns, which in turn effected the convenience and pleasure of shopping. It was found that the combination of NBR, TOP and IND generated the optimal link structure, whereas PAR and NEP rather decreased the degree of shopping pleasure and convenience. This paper concludes with its limitations and implications on the construction of effective cyber shopping malls.

Kim, Jinwoo and Byunggon Yoo. Yonsei University (2000). Design>Information Design>Web Design>E Commerce

Trust and Online Purchasing

The success of web retailing depends to a large extent on gaining and maintaining the trust of users. 'User experience' certainly includes elements of usability, but it goes beyond this to encompass the entire customer interaction process. When focusing on the online experience, there are certain key recommendations for organisations seeking to improve user experience.

Farrell, Tom. Frontend Infocentre (2000). Design>Web Design>E Commerce

Twenty Tasks in E-Commerce

Suggested tasks for testing of ecommerce sites such as compare product features for products A and B.

Bohmann, Kristoffer. Bohmann Usability (2000). Design>Web Design>Usability>E Commerce

UK E-Commerce Losing Half Its Local Business

UK e-commerce businesses could be losing as much as half their local business, if they opt for a 'dot com' web address.

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

Understanding the IBM Basic B2B Profile

The IBM Basic Business-to-Business (B2B) Profile 1.0 is a profile that, in the fashion of the WS-I profiles, enables basic B2B integration scenarios using Web services technologies. In this paper, author Chris Ferris explain the profile's purpose and technical content.

Ferris, Christopher. IBM (2005). Articles>Web Design>E Commerce

Usability and Online Bookmaking

One industry that seems to be weathering the current online storm – and which has a reputation of being ‘recession proof’ in any case – is bookmaking. A combination of established offline players (William Hill, Ladbrokes and Paddy Power for example) and online-only companies (such as Blue Square) continue to provide plenty of choice to punters. This in itself is hardly surprising, as bookmaking is one industry tailor-made for the Internet environment.

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

Usability in Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

In CRM, user acceptance is a huge issue. End users, who are rarely the same people who choose applications in the first place, can be extraordinarily resourceful when it comes to undermining or working around new products or implementations introduced by manager. All this means that creating applications that are efficient and enjoyable to use is imperative for both ISVs and CRM implementers.

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

The Usability of eBay's Checkout Feature

The article briefly highlights some frustrations sellers have with eBay's Checkout feature.

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

Usability Testing of Travel Websites    

A usability study was conducted to identify usability problems as well as recommendations for improvement for three travel sales websites. The study performed testing on twenty participants, between the ages of 19 and 65, recruited from the university campus consisting of students, faculty, and staff. The three websites tested were Expedia.com, Orbitz.com, and Travelocity.com. Each participant was given general instructions and a pre-survey to determine their demographics and level of Internet experience. The usability study tested participants on the task of finding the same itinerary on each travel website. The participant during testing was under observation of the experimenter that maintained an observation log. A post-survey along with a debriefing session was conducted to gather additional feedback. The average testing time for participants was 30 minutes. The results of this study are presented as well as a future research discussion consisting of the development of usability guidelines for designers of travel websites.

Carstens, Deborah S. and Pauline Patterson. Journal of Usability Studies (2006). Articles>Web Design>Usability>E Commerce

User Experience and E-Commerce

Slowly but surely the importance of 'user experience' to any e-commerce initiative is being understood. It is becoming apparent that simply ensuring that the goods are in the shop and the customers can find the door is not enough in the ultra-competitive online environment. 'User experience' is the difference between one-time visitors and satisfied repeat customers. It is also the area in which e-businesses can learn most from their offline equivalents. 'User experience' certainly includes elements of usability, but it goes beyond this to encompass the entire customer interaction process. But focusing on the online experience, there are certain key recommendations for organisations seeking to improve user experience.

Frontend Infocentre (2001). Design>Web Design>E Commerce

Utilizing a User's Context to Improve Search Results  

This paper describes some design practices for providing a scoped search interface for an e-commerce site.

Gremett, Peter. Earthlink (2003). Design>Web Design>Search>E Commerce

What Causes Customers to Buy on Impulse?  

This paper studies the design elements within e-commerce sites that motivate impulse purchases online.

Spool, Jared M. User Interface Engineering (2003). Design>Web Design>User Centered Design>E Commerce

What I Learned From Television

Despite the increasing number of website ads, consumers aren’t necessarily getting their feathers ruffled more, they’re getting smarter.

Danzico, Liz. Boxes and Arrows (2005). Articles>Web Design>Marketing>E Commerce