UCD Concepts

Today I came across the Google Shopping Cart beta widget.  Now this isn’t exactly a new idea, but Google has done a pretty good job with the dynamics of the cart.

Let’s start by showing you a picture of the page at its default state.

Notice the “View Cart” at the top right?  This is always in the top right corner of the web page.  This is how it looks by default when first coming to the page.  There are a variety of items (none of which interest me) that can be added to the cart.

Let’s pretend I have added a few items to my cart.  When each item is added, the most recently added item is placed at the top of the cart and the background of that row is highlighted as show below:

The item seems to be highlighted on a timer and the highlight color fades to white after about 3 seconds.  This is an excellent visual cue for the user when the item is added and highlighted so they can quickly scan the cart to confirm the item is indeed there.

Notice the clean lines separating each item?  I would hope the styles were customizable though so that the cart can tie in nicely with e-commerce storefronts.

The cart automatically minimizes when the users clicks elsewhere on the site other than the cart itself.  The user can also click the top row where it displays “View Cart (# items)” to minimize the cart as well.

The interaction model works well here and I would question if any other indicators, to minimize the cart, are necessary.  Mainly I would question if there needs to be the ability to have the cart open when the user moves their cursor over it.  The cursor turns into a hand on mouseover, to signify that it is clickable, but would every user know to mouse over that area?  Is the right arrow enough of an indicator to the user?

My guess is that users will easily learn this is clickable by discovery if they already don’t know it.  Of course, I have

So I’ve got one more screenshot to share with you that displays an item removed from the cart.

You’ll notice the “has been removed.” text underneath the item that has been removed.  The nice thing is that it stays there until the cart minimizes and the next time that opens, the item will no longer be showing. 

Other nice features of this cart are:

When the user adds an item that already exists in the cart, and the attributes of that item are the same, it just increases the quantity of the item by one.  There is no need for an additional line item of the same product.

There is also affordance text that lets the user know that shipping and taxes will be on the next page.  The text is nice to have instead of making the user not knowing what to do about the shipping and taxes. 

I would suggest automatically calculating the charges if the ZIP/Postal Code was already known.  If not, I have seen many sites take the national average for taxes (6.00%)  and calculate that with messaging that lets the user know that total may fluctuate depending on where the item is being shipped to.

I also really like the quick response of the item being added to the cart.  AJAX style functionality can sometimes go a long way with something so small. 

Overall, I think Google has done an excellent job with their shopping cart widget.  I would love to know the issues they ran across in any usability tests they may have done.  Yes, I am assuming that they performed usability testing on this widget.  If not, it’s a pretty good start.

Check out (pun intended) the new Google Shopping Cart widget.  It’s still in beta so I don’t know how long the link will remain available.

Cheers.

I stumbled across a great new blog (maybe it’s only new to me) called Palmer Web Marketing.  They have a 25 Ways Series that is very thought provoking and something I will certainly blog about in the near future.

Now back to the reason for this post. 

I was reading a guest post by Justin Palmer on Get Elastic called Losing Customers at the Register: 12 Checkout Blunders.  This is an excellent article for those of you in e-commerce that have anything to do with the checkout process.

Justin talks about 12 checkout blunders that attribute to the loss of customers at the register.  While many of these are refreshers for some, this article might spark some interest in others that may be starting in e-commerce.

Get Elastic is one of my favorite blogs for e-commerce usability tips and statistics.  I find that a good majority of posts they present (whether big or small), really provide valuable insight into the many problems that online retailers face.

Since I don’t yet know the rules and etiquette of quoting articles from other blogs (I just started blogging), I am going to only name the 12 areas and allow you to follow the link to read the article.

1. Unfriendly Credit Card Errors
2. Login
3. Default Credit Card Type Selected
4. Cancel Buttons
5. Up-selling or Cross-selling
6. Disclaimers, Explanations, and Warnings
7. Insecure Page Errors
8. Only One Payment Type
9. Dead End Receipt Pages
10. Hiding Additional Charges
11. No Prominent 1-800 Number
12. Product Stockouts

Please be sure to check out the comments at the bottom of the article.  I find those that participate in the comments sometimes have a different point of view and call out things that the author may have missed.

I added my own comment regarding #11 - No Prominent 1-800 Number because I am of the mindset that companies need to balance the user experience with what they can justify in cost to provide - meaning that if a company cannot afford the staff to handle the volume of calls the experience will become sour fast.  There are very few times you will ever hear me say that, but how would you like it if you called an (800) number and went through the multiple phone paths only to find out that there is no rep available to help you?

Personally, I would much rather avoid that experience as much as possible.  There are other alternatives that can be cost-justified such as Click to Chat.  Retailers using Click to Chat can allow one rep to handle multiple help inquiries simultaneously while a phone rep can usually handle only one request at a time.

That alone should help justify the technology, but let’s look at it from another angle.

The call center can continue to provide phone service along with the Click to Chat and possibly cut down their daytime calls if users have the second option.  The reduction of calls could then be seen as a possible increase with customer satisfaction which should lead into an increase in conversion over time. 

Clik to Chat can also be the “after hours” contact method allowing a fraction of reps for maximum handling of help inquiries and allowing for a 24/7 customer service for all those night time shoppers.

It could be a win/win situation for everyone involved.  Maybe I will visit this topic again in the future with additional information.  If you would like to read more about Click to Chat or Live Chat as a sales tool, check out this article at Internet Retailer called Let’s talk Once seen as a customer service option, live chat has become a sales tool

Again, the link to the article is Losing Customers at the Register: 12 Checkout Blunders and I promise it will give you something to think about.  Maybe it will remind you of something that happened at your online store in recent months.