November 29, 2005
Simplifying the e-commerce user experience
I run an online fishing lure store. I'd like to optimize the end user experience and try to keep things as simple as possible. Any tips on what I can improve on my site in terms of usability?
Often, as e-commerce websites grow, more and more categories are added to the navigation, and more and more new content is tacked on to the home page. This creates random or cluttered navigation, and makes it more difficult for users to find what they want.
Remember that users don’t need every bit of content on the home page, as long as the navigational choices are clear.
Here are some general rules to consider for simplifying e-commerce sites.
- Keep top-level navigation to 5 – 9 categories. More than that can be overwhelming for users, as it becomes difficult for them to hold all categories in memory while scanning for what they need.
- Restrict the number of links from the home page. While there isn’t a concrete number of links at which overload occurs, this is one of the most common issues we see with small to mid-sized e-commerce sites. We see many companies with 50 – 100 links to products they want to highlight on the home page. This is far too much. Highlight only 1 or 2 featured products on the home page (you’ll find that this also increases your credibility).
- Develop a Search and Browse structure that allows users to get to any product quickly. While we are not generally proponents of the arbitrary 3-click rule (i.e., users must be able to get anywhere on a site within 3 clicks), it’s important that your users be able to see the products they’re interested in as efficiently as possible, whether they are searchers or browsers. If your results sets can be long, make sure users can easily sort and filter the results (for example, bestsellers, new products, etc.).
- Create a simple and clean visual design. Avoid flashing images, too many logos or icons, oversized icons and overuse of color. All this does is create visual noise. Also, use white space. It allows users to scan, chunk and process information in a more efficient manner.
For more good information on e-commerce usability, see Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox column Amazon: No Longer the Role Model for E-Commerce Design.
