The key to great usability for an web store is familiarity. People have now been buying goods online for years now, they expect to see a certain process unfold when shopping on the net, and when a developer makes radical departures from the status quo, tears may ensue (regardless of how good the designer's intentions may be). Does this mean a developer is locked into reproducing the same old shopping interface again and again? Definitely not, but conforming to certain standards is going to help the user.
This information analyzes the usability of components commonly found within most shopping website (e.g. the cart, the checkout process, etc). The idea isn't so much to be prescriptive and set down hard and fast rules, but instead to explain what is going to be most familiar to shoppers. Creativity and deviation from typical is a good thing on the internet, otherwise things would get pretty boring. But being aware of the de facto standards on shopping websites enables you to make informed decisions when taking a novel direction https://www.complasinternational.ie/.
The Login box - there is some variation in how shopping websites cope with user log ins. Some sites require that a person log in before creating a purchase, whereas others enable guest accounts. Well-known basics will be a username and password field. The only real pitfall here could be labeling the username field 'Email' ;.'Username' is the more ubiquitous label, it will help cut-down on possible confusion which could arise if there have been say a newsletter subscription box near by.
All the choices to be made through this interface element relate to naming; would you call it 'Register' or 'Sign-Up'?, in case you label your commit button 'Go' or 'Login'?, is your password recovery link called 'Password recovery' or 'Forgot your password?" ;.Whatever labels you choose, you should favor brevity, generally nothing longer then three short words https://earsense.ie/.
Following a person logs in, there is a chance to reclaim some precious screen property by eliminating UI elements which aren't needed anymore. Showing the shopper's name helps you to personalized the service and thus allow it to be a tad bit more friendly (nb. you can choose 'Welcome John Smith' instead of 'Logged in as: ...'). This really is also a good place to exhibit the 'My Account' and 'Logout' links since both these functions are logically related to the shopper's account.
By the way, a 'Logout' link is somewhat redundant since closing the browser window serves a similar purpose (assuming the session has expired), but a logout feature may help alleviate any security-related concerns a shopper may have.
The item search mechanism - the textbox for product searching is pretty straight-forward, but product browsing can go in numerous directions.
This works great if the category hierarchy is flat, it saves space plus you realize the UI wont behave unexpectedly if the product list gets long. But what when you yourself have sub-categories (e.g. Fishing->Hooks, Fishing->Knives, Fishing->Bait, etc)? Sure you could utilize a dash to indicate a sub-category, nevertheless the drop-list option would start to lose a number of its eloquence.
Categories and sub-categories may be treated the same as site navigation, which is essentially what it's (i.e. product navigation). Common approaches are to make use of CSS fly-outs or in-place expanding panels (much like Windows Explorer) https://heelboy.com/.
Being an added touch, I prefer to put a reset icon near the search button. This lets the consumer return the searching mechanism to its initial state and never having to go all the best way to the browser refresh button or press the F5 key.
The shopping basket - the structure of a shopping cart application has become fairly standardized these days. You have the product name with a hyperlink back fully product description, the buying price of the patient product, and the number the shopper desires to buy.
I prefer to include a small bin icon so shoppers can easily remove items from their basket which they no more want. You might like to add a sub-total at the end of the shopping cart application, but I don't think that is necessary since the consumer will be shown a sub-total during the checkout stage.
Another feature which improves usability is feedback messages. It's very important to let the consumer know when something happens as a result of their interaction with the device, as an example; showing a short message when a product is added or taken from their cart https://www.pro-demo.ca/.
The item details page - one of the biggest decisions here's whether to have a product listing page along with an in depth product description page. If you were just using a listing page for products, you would show short descriptions along with each product. The choice would signify a shopper needs to click a product's summary to be able to see its full details.
Generally I decide this based on what much information is going to be shown with a product. If it's only expected that a few lines can look for every single product's description, then the product details page wont be needed. However, this could have significant SEO consequences since each product doesn't have it's own name appear in the browser page title-bar. It could be argued that the summary-on-listing page interface is more effective when it comes to usability since a shopper gets all the information they want with fewer clicks.
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