The increasing importance of usability in e-commerce
Posted February 10th, 2009 by David HamillThe world is facing a massive financial downturn, so doing business over the internet makes more sense now than it ever did. In order to succeed, retail businesses should pay more attention to the usability of their websites.
Why the increased focus on e-commerce?
It’s cheaper for customers
We’re likely to be buying on the internet more often, because we’ll be trying to find a better deal. When our disposable income is reduced, we’re more likely to shop around. These days that means buying and researching prices on the internet.
Those of us who are shopping online already, are likely to do it more and for a wider range of purchases. Others who aren’t yet shopping online may soon find it hard to resist.
The price comparison website Confused.com recently launched a new TV advertising campaign based exclusively on the usability of its new website. The campaign appears to be aimed at people who want to get the best deal, but are resistant to using a website to get it. Confused.com are trying to entice reluctant internet shoppers on to their website and usability is their selling point.
It’s cheaper for businesses
According to the Society of Information Technology Management, the average web interaction costs a UK organisation £0.27. Over the phone it’s £3.76 and face-to-face is £9.34 (borrowed info from Gerry McGovern). So the cost-saving benefit of e-commerce is pretty obvious really.
When budgets are being slashed, it’s a good idea to use it wisely. The web is the cheapest route-to-market for most companies. So we can expect to see some of them pushing their web offering strongly.
Getting more from your e-commerce site
You can increase the volume of business you do online in 2 ways.
- Increase the number of people who visit your site.
- Reduce the number of people who leave without buying anything
You can increase the number of people coming to your site by spending more money on advertising, pay-per-click campaigns and search engine optimisation. But you could also get more out of your current visitors, by fixing the problems that make them leave without buying anything.
Most of the people who visit an e-commerce website will leave without making a purchase. So even a small reduction in the number off these drop-outs can result in an impressive increase in sales. These improvements can often be achieved with relatively simple changes.
An extreme example is described in Jared Spool’s article, the $300 Million Button. Spool explains how an e-commerce website saw a massive increase in sales just by letting people buy without creating an account.
As amazing as this story is, you don’t need to look far on the web to find a retailer repeating the same mistake. Perhaps you’re reading this and realising that your own site is one of them.
Breaking the redesign cycle
You don’t need to redesign your website in order to make significant improvements to it. A good thing that might come-out of the credit crunch is that more web managers realise, large-scale redesign projects are a waste of time and money.
A responsive company does not improve itself by throwing everything away and starting again every few years. Instead it tweaks and adjusts itself by improving only the things that need to be changed. It’s just a matter of finding the things you need to improve.
Finding the areas to improve
The 2 techniques I most often use to help my clients improve their websites are:
It’s often a good idea to use them both, but not at the same time. You start with an expert usability review and then follow up with usability testing after you’ve made some improvements. This allows you to get more out of both techniques.
The expert usability review
Many e-commerce websites make similar mistakes, so an experience usability person can often spot them. By asking a usability specialist to review your site, you can find issues that are likely to cause problems for your visitors. They should be able to recommend positive changes for you to consider.
A classic example is the number of websites that force registration (or even appear to do so) before making a sale, as described in Jared Spool’s article.
Usability testing
Usability testing is a very good way to find the problems that are limiting your site’s potential to sell products. This involves watching people using your website unassisted. You can run your own usability testing or get a professional to do it for you. There are benefits in both approaches and you can also do a bit of a mixture of both.
What’s more important is that you take enough of an interest to watch the tests yourself and that you test regularly. It’s better to test your site with a handful of people every few months, than do all-singing-all-dancing studies every year or so.
Such grand studies can leave you with more information than you know what to do with. They can also be fairly demoralising, rather than inspiring a culture of constant improvement.
Measuring success
Before you begin to improve your website, it’s a good idea to find some measurements that you’d like to see improve. It’s all very well trying to identify usability issues. But the changes you make should lead to a measurable improvement in the performance of the site. Surprisingly, this is a step that many businesses overlook.
Continuous improvement
Your website can be improved. This is a fact regardless of which site it is. Improving websites is easier and more effective manage when done continuously. If you manage an e-commerce website and are worried about the financial climate. Then I recommend you start improving your website now and never stop.
Did you find this useful?
If you found this article useful or even if you want to tell me I’m wrong, please leave a comment using the form below. You might also be interested in the following posts:
- Focus group usability testing
- Usability test tasks to avoid
- The benefits and limitations of expert reviews
2 Responses to “The increasing importance of usability in e-commerce”
February 10th, 2009 at 9:35 pm
Well said, David. And it’s not just the usability but also the accessibility – why restrict your audience unnecessarily.
As you suggest, web-sites are not static things – they have to evolve to reflect the needs of their users and cater for changes in whatever business model they aim to enable. Usability testing is, of course, vitally important – if your customers can’t get their heads around your site, they’ll go to another that they can.
Another useful tool is, of course, requirements prototyping and I’d argue that anyone who is creating a new functional website, or revising an existing one, should use techniques like this to ensure that the actual design lends itself to meeting user needs ahead of the development phase, and then use continuous usability test integration once the site/product is launched.
Regards,
John
February 11th, 2009 at 8:52 am
Thanks for this
it’s been useful and interesting to read! particularly some of the stats you’ve used.
With the many tools out there today, there is no excuse for people to not conduct some user testing, even with small budgets some great in house testing can be done.
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