Your website (continued from page 1)
Functionality
Now here is my pet peeve. If your site is not functionally easy to use, I leave. I don't have time for long drill-downs, going through menu after menu to get where I needed to go. Then finding out that the shopping cart is not user friendly. Here are a few words of wisdom for making your site functionally pleasing to most of your visitors.
Menus
First, make sure your navigation links are the same on all pages. There is nothing like getting stuck on a page somewhere in the site and you can not get back to recognizable territory like the home page. The best method to do this is by setting up a template that you will use for the whole site. After you have finished adjusting the template so that the look-and-feel is they way you want it, it is best if you cut the navigation bar out of your HTML document and paste into a notepad text file with an .inc extension so that you can make it an include file on all the other pages. (if you are not familiar with include files, you need to read up on them) When you have multiple pages and need to change a link or ad a link you only need to make one change in the include file make the same change on every page.
Second, work on your flow of your site to try and eliminate as much drill-down as possible. Most of us get aggravated if we go from sub-menu to sub-menu 3 or 4 times to get to a product. Much of this can be eliminated with prior planning. Several years ago, when they were new, cascading menus and dropdown boxes were cool, but they have been over-used and are a real pain in the butt to the consumer. It may be my senior age, but I find it difficult to navigate the first dropdown box, only to find that the product I stop on brings up a second dropdown beside it and then eventually another one beside that one. Take men's jeans for instance. I was on a site recently really looking for prices on men's jeans. Top category on the left nav menu was "apparel". Mouse-over it and get a dropdown beside it that gives me a choice of men's or women's. When I hover over men's a third dropdown appears with a list of all the brands (6 deep). So besides the time spent getting there what is frustrating? Well, if I miss my navigation from one dropdown to the next only slightly, they all disappear and I have to start over.
This aggravating system could be improved slightly by expanding navigation links instead of dropdowns. It could be improved even more by better planning. The top level nav choices could give me "men's apparel" and another link "woman's apparel". This eliminates one whole dropdown. Next, the nav bar could give me sub-choices, indented in from the main category (men's apparel) such as "shirts", "jeans". "slacks", "coats" etc.
I have now accomplished two things. I have eliminated 2 dropdown boxes, and I have given the visitor a clear picture of what I have and how to get there.
Finally, the brands. If it is necessary to separate the brands I still suggest you stay away from dropdown menus. I suggest two choices. First expand the menu for that sub-category. This can be done easily by loading a second menu. My second recommendation is to provide a new screen when they click on the sub-category (men's apparel, jeans) and display the logo's for each brand and make then links to their specific product.
Shopping Carts
As you can tell if you read any of my other writings, this is a sore subject with me. Picture this: You walk into a new department store and look around for a shopping cart. You don't see any available. Upon asking an employee, he goes to a back room and comes out with a cart. Aggravated yet? As you start to push the cart you notice that the cart has a lid to it and a slot through which you put your items in the cart. A little strange, huh! You spend an hour shopping and begin to worry if you forgot something or is it already in the cart. You find that the lid was sealed and you can't check the cart to see if it is there. Pretty well aggravated at this point decide not to do any more shopping at this place and head for the check-out. On the way you realize you have over spent your budget. Upon reaching check out you inform the clerk that you want to put one item back because you don't want it at this time. She informs you that once it is in your cart, you can't take it out!
Conclusion
Sound a little far fetched? Maybe for a brick-and-mortar department store it is pretty exaggerated, but I have come across a few shopping carts that come close to that scenario. Because an inexperienced designer hasn't thought the whole process through, many potential customers have a bad experience and either don't trust the site or find it to amateurish for their taste. Be very careful that you pick an ecommerce guru who understands all of the nuances of a website and doesn't create the shopping horror in my made-up scene.
In closing, I would like to remind you that there are many other details you need to plan for; what is your return policy, is there a page that spells it out? How about disclaimers, privacy policy, legal page, security? Shipping policy? What about family friendly, is it child safe? Do you have a contact us page? There is a lot to consider when you decide to go Internet with Ecommerce.
Lee Siemon - author
©This article is the copyrighted work of The DPS Group. No text, articles or images on this website may be copied, published or used in any manner without our prior written permission.
|
