Case-study: Is Amazon too confusing?
Well Angelina Jolie seems to think so. “Brad and I were on Amazon.com for the first time a week ago. But we got lost. After an hour, we just shut it off. My brain is too scattered and the wires go in different directions. I’ll stick to catalogues”. This was said by Angelina Jolie after being asked by USA Today on whether she did her Christmas shopping online.
Make of this what you will but it got me thinking nonetheless about eCommerce websites in general. While it certainly is true that millions of people globally shop online, it does not necessarily mean that websites like Amazon are intuitive and easy to use because of this fact. I think that there is a large percentage of people that simply find sites like Amazon confusing which I think is mainly to do with a lack of spacing between elements that forces things to feel cramped and disorderly.
In the example above I simply made some minor adjustments to the spacing of elements including the navigation, removed a few unnecessary wording and breadcrumbs from the column and positioned the important prices of information beside the item instead of below. As a result you feel less bombarded with lots of information as the page is properly structured and cleaner to look at.
In previous years eCommerce sites would have had to cram in loads of data above the fold because users were using smaller monitors, but now with much higher resolutions and screen sizes being commonplace there is no excuse.
Here are some tips which I feel need to be considered when designing for eCommerce.
- Don’t overload your pages with unnecessary breadcrumbs. One below the navigation should be enough of an indicator.
- Consider using an adequate XHTML/CSS grid system when planning the site structure in order to space out your elements as best as possible. For a list of grid systems to use see my Links page.
- Avoid using lengthy or unnecessary verbiage, instead use words that are easy to understand and direct. i.e: Find instead of Go
- Consider the information hierarchy, data which has a higher level of importance such as ratings, price, offers must be presented first followed by secondary information like the description etc.
A great eCommerce site is one that cuts down the numbers of processes required in order to make a transaction in a way that is fluid and orderly that will make for a better experience.
