5 Fundamental Guidelines for eCommerce Usability Design

As a retail or brick and mortar business, you are on the cold face of client interaction, bringing your brand and products to live.

But to stay competitive in today�s increasingly online world, an online retail presence is a must in order to stay in business and stay relevant within your industry.

There are many options available when it comes to creating your eCommerce storefront; which can be as simple or as involved as you like, as long as you keep in mind some fundamental guidelines for it�s overall usability design, whatever option you choose should work.

Here at Alinga, we work with Magento, as it allows for optimal customisability and integrates with a lot of different applications to bring to life search engine and user-friendly sites.

Let�s start your eCommerce store off on the right foot by following these 5 fundamental principles when it comes to design.

5 Guidelines for Successful eCommerce Design

1. Aim to keep navigation as simple and functional as possible. Make it easy for people who land on your site to find what they want to purchase and you�ve succeeded.Make a user have to click multiple times and drill down on menus to access a product, and you�ve lost a client for life. Keep it simple and user-friendly.
2. Keep the checkout process linear. This means that the checkout process should either take you to a new page on your site or a display a cart within the same page. Do not redirect to another page, you�ll lose your client forever.Keep it transparent and simple.
3. Make error indicators easy to understand. If an error occurs, make it clear at the check out point what has happened and what needs to be done to fix it.Make your error notifications clear and easy to see. If a potential customer can�t purchase your product the first time, they may try again, but if the same thing happens the second time, they won�t try a third. Make error notifications prominent by utilising colours such as red text, highlighted text in yellow or another option is for blinking text. Always place the error notification at the top of the page or beside the specific item or issue that needs to be fixed.
4. Ensure page load times are fast. If a potential customer has to wait around for a page to load for longer than 10 seconds, they will give up and not come back. There are no second chances when it comes to page load speeds. They go back to Google and look for the next option.To ensure that this doesn�t happen, utilise a reliable hosting company to ensure that your websites performance is always running at optimal speeds.
5. Making searching easy on your site. It goes without saying that you need to ensure you have a search feature on your site. This makes it easy for people to find what they are looking for if they don�t know enough about your product or service.Take it that one step further and have your search feature the auto-complete functionality. This is what Google uses when you start typing into the search box – it will suggest ideas to finish your sentence.This will make it easier for your visitors to source what they are searching for but it will provide further sales opportunities for your business.

If you need help setting up your eCommerce site or would like some guidenace on how your current site can be improved, contact us at Alinga today. We provide Magento eCommerce and will work with you to create a site that your customers will love to visit.