CategoryE-Commerce

April 20, 2015 — Given the importance of filtering, Christian Holst and the entire team at the Baymard Institute spent the nine months researching how users browse, filter and evaluate products in e-commerce product lists. At the core of this research was a large-scale usability study testing 19 leading e-commerce websites with real end users, following the think-aloud protocol. In this article Christian will take a closer look at some of the research findings related to the users’ filtering experience. He’ll walk through each of some filtering insights, showing you the usability test findings, examining the benchmark data and presenting best practice examples for creating a good e-commerce filtering experience. Read more…

February 9, 2015 — Carousels come in many shapes and sizes. Some can be effective, others less so. You need a lot more data from a lot of different situations before you dismiss the pattern entirely. In this article, Kyle Peatt aims for a better understanding of the current argument against carousels and whether they really deserve the reputation they’ve gained, using real data. He’ll break down the arguments point by point and see if his data lines up with those expectations. He’ll also detail his findings and methods and make some recommendations on how and when you should use carousels in future. Read more…

October 23, 2014 — An abandonment means that a customer has visited a website, browsed around, added one or more products to their cart and then left without completing their purchase. Reducing the number of abandoned carts would lead to higher store revenue. The question then becomes how can we, as designers and developers, help convert “warm leads” into paying customers for our clients? Designers and developers are in a powerful position to help their clients increase their revenue, and being armed with tactics such as the ones outlined in this article will hopefully enable them to offer a wider range of services. Read more…

August 18, 2014 — On-site search is a key component of almost any e-commerce website. But unfortunately, search often doesn’t work very well. That’s why Baymard Institute has invested months conducting a large-scale usability study, testing the e-commerce search experience of 19 major e-commerce websites with real-world end users. In this article, Christian Holst will provide you insight on how to improve the search experience and success rate on your e-commerce website. He’ll round the article off with a general analysis of the current state of e-commerce search. Read more…

March 19, 2014 — What is the ideal product page? Who are we building this mobile website for? Putting together a mobile e-commerce website is a multidisciplinary task that encompasses business management, design, development and marketing. In this article, Lawrence Howlett will walk through all of the vital steps when planning a highly converting mobile e-commerce website. Read more…

December 18, 2013 — Online shopping is about convenience and comfort, and those of us who have ventured into the realm of online shopping know how time-consuming it can be. The online stores that stand out from the rest are those that go the extra mile for their users. In this article, Shavaughn Haack will look at some small and big e-commerce websites that create pleasant online shopping experiences. You’ll consider the experience from the very start to the very end, right through to the checkout process. Read more…

November 11, 2013 — If customers can’t find a product, they can’t buy it. Therefore we invested eight months conducting a large-scale usability research study on the product-finding experience. We set out to explore how users navigate, find and select products on e-commerce websites. Throughout the test sessions, the subjects would abandon websites because they were unable to find the products they were looking for. All of these usability issues have been distilled into 79 concise guidelines in a report titled “Homepage & Category Usability.” In this article, we’ll go over seven of the guidelines. Read more…

September 13, 2013 — In this article, we feature a set of 33 flat e-commerce icons, created exclusively for Smashing Magazine by Responsive. The icons are suited to e-commerce projects and include many popular payment providers. The set includes Photoshop and Illustrator files containing all of the icons. Read more…

March 14, 2013 — A record number of shoppers are turning to their smartphones to research potential purchases. Meanwhile, the bigger question — are those same users willing to complete the purchases on their mobile device? — is quickly being answered. The US, for example, saw an 81% spike in mobile e-commerce (m-commerce) sales in 2012, comprising a $25 billion market. Read more…

December 19, 2012 — In this article, which focuses on smartphones, not tablets, we’ll look at design patterns and approaches used for mobile e-commerce functionality, including home pages, photo galleries, and more. All the examples are drawn from mobile websites that run in smartphone browsers. Read more…