Evaluating ecommerce sites (lecture 2)
Written by: Jonathan Briggs
October 3, 2006 [2252 views]
To help us understand some of the issues in ecommerce it is worth looking hard at some existing and well-known sites. During this session we will compare several sites. The activity that accompanies this session will allow you to evaluate some sites on your own.
GOOD THINGS TO LOOK FOR
Great design
Look at the overall design of the site. Does it look distinct, well branded and polished or does it look like hundreds of other templated sites? Do you trust the brand?
Fast
Does the site feel responsive and fast to load?
Easy to navigate
Can you find your way around? Imagine you are a customer who knows nothing about the company or its products? Imagine you know them well and want to find a product quickly? Can I navigate without having to use the browser’s back button? Is it clear where to go next? Move further into the site and imagine you have arrived here from a search engine link, does the site make sense even if you do not enter through the home page?
Rich information
Is there enough information on the site about company and the products they sell? Did you have a clear idea of what the site was selling as soon as you arrived at the home page?
Opportunities for customer feedback, complaints, enquiries
Try and find out how to return an item or ask a question.
Internal search
Does the search deal with common synonyms; providing sensible suggestions when no exact match is found?
Decision support
Can I compare products or understand how they compare with their competitors? Are there pages with advice to help me with my buying decisions and remove any worries I may have as a customer?
Optimised for search engines
Is the site easy to find if you know of the company? What if you know the product but not the company? Type name of the company into Google and see whether you find the site. Now repeat the task for one of their products.
Sense of personality
Can you “see” the people behind the site? Do you feel you will be well supported as a customer? Do you trust the company behind the site?
Clear tempo
Does the site change regularly to reflect seasons, trends and holidays? If you look at it today, when would you expect the content to change next?
Personalisation
Does the site respond to my interests and needs? Does it recognise you as a repeat customer?
Recommendations of related items
Does the site make suggestions of related items that you might be interested in?
Frequently asked questions
Does the site answer common fears about security, delivery, gift wrapping etc?
Integrated into the business
Do you get the sense that the stock availability is accurate? Can I pre-order or split shipping to multiple addresses?
Accessible
Is the site compliant with the 1995 Disabilities Discrimination Act which states that all sites must be usable by the blind and partially sighted?
Smooth shopping process
Logical sequence that allows you to change your mind and makes it easy to move through the steps involved.
BAD THINGS TO LOOK FOR
Barriers
Does the site make me register before I can search or buy products? Is there a pointless introductory movie to skip before I get to the store?
Faults
Did everything work or did things go wrong when you were using the site? Real people make mistakes and sites should cope with common errors.
Poor internal search
When no results are found the site displays a “sorry, there were no results” message instead of helping you find what you want?
Difficult to find
Site is invisible to the search engines?
Hidden charges
Customers hate to discover that shipping, gift wrapping or express delivery will be extra.
Poorly implemented payment integration
Are you taken to a different site to pay the bill? This can make customers feel insecure.
Lack of customer reassurance
Customers come with all sorts of worries: will it fit, what if it doesn’t work, does it work with X? Many sites ignore these worries.
Poor branding
Companies sometimes spend thousands on their offline brand and then put up very poor sites. Does the site live up to the offline branding?
Mystery menus
Customers hate mystery interfaces where it is impossible to work out where products are. This includes dynamic dropdown menus that are often hard to use.
Poor classification of products
The company knows its products but the customer does not! Many sites put items in only one category and expect customers to understand their internal classification systems.
Recent comments:
What do you think?
On October 4, 2006 at 4:06 PM, Jennifer Hooper wrote:
This site evaluation guide covers the core principles to distinguish what is and what is not a good website. A good design, coupled with the other essential products here in and a good marketing will aid in dreams becoming successes.