House of Fraser have recently launched their 1st e-commerce site - following is a user experience review looking at how persuasion architecture has been adopted, key browsing functionality provided and the overall shopping experience you can expect at this new luxury online store.
For anyone interested in how I recommend House of Fraser can further enhance the user experience, I have gathered together a variety of recommendations, focusing on the checkout process, customer registration and specific areas during a visitors browsing process. Feel free to contact me if you are interested in hearing about these recommendations, as I will be passing them directly on to House of Fraser rather than sharing all this expertise with the whole online community.
Overview
Putting brands at what appears to be the forefront of their online strategy, the new House of Fraser website provides an almost immediate synergy between their online experience and the aspirations of the brand hungry visitor. On first view the site provides all the features and functionality you would expect from a site which has been developed using what I expect would have been a user centered design approach - high visibility of the search functionality and shopping basket (inc. summary of key info, a useful mini basket dropdown feature and the login/register links), clearly labeled and intuitive category navigation, a clear, best practice modeled checkout process and a strong focus on persuasion architecture. On to the review…
Visual Design Style
Going with a black, moody background, using a beveled header style similar to Windows Media Player11, the well structured pages throughout the site provide a very clear and uncluttered user experience. The extensive use of white backgrounds and keen use of space, especially as you are in the latter stages of a browsing and buying process, ensure the visibility of key functionality and product information is very high, and the use of large category headers and the related breadcrumb trail ensures users know exactly which category/sub-category they are in.
Site Navigation
Good signposting, filtering and brand focus
Overall the new site navigation works well, with clearly defined categories, page titles and breadcrumb trails. Link language is very consistent which ensure users don’t need to continually learn what is and isn’t clickable. The common and essential (for large e-commerce sites) multi-faceted navigation introduced at sub-category pages (allowing users to filter the current products by price bracket, colours and brand) works well and ensures the brand focused users can shop by their favourite brands once they are looking at the product type that interests them. Heavy branding throughout the site continually plays with consumer psychology, which in turn provides some of the persuasion content and momentum which is critical for shoppers looking to purchase expensive, branded products
Primary Category Navigation
By providing a top level category specifically for brands, along with John Lewis, this again supports what I expect will be a large percentage of visitors objectives which will be to shop by brand - these shoppers aren’t just looking for a branded dress or pair of trousers, they want to see what range of products from their favourite famous brands are available, irrespective of product type.
Slight navigational issues
Whilst browsing the site during the course of this user experience review I discovered some slight navigational issues which may well impact on a users overall user experience:
- On clicking a main brand promo from the top level category, you are taken to a search results page - I would suggest this keeps you within the womens category (inc. tab navigation remaining highlighted) but with a search filter applied on womenswear - to ensure consistency of breadcrumb. Also a new search box appears with a search term that you have supposedly entered
- In a search results page for womens tops, bottles of perfume, luggage and bags are displayed, some taking up the whole 1st results page which will confuse visitors
- Once within the brand directory, the main navigation tab disappears when you are browsing products from a particular brand, losing the visual indicator of which category you are within
- Also within the brand directory, when viewing products from a brand and then you remove that brand filter, rather than being taken back to the brand list page you go back to the homepage, which is dis-orientating
- Brand names on product lister pages are clickable to the product, but the product title isn’t - brand logos shown with actual products at earlier levels take you to all products by that brand - I would recommend adopting greater consistency
- If a product isn’t by a brand name, n/a is displayed in place of the brand logo - this brand logo slot could be removed if not a brand product for a tidier display of product information
- When viewing a bedlinen product page, it is hard to work out where to view product info ie, sizes, material, wash instructions - this info is actually found by clicking the individual product description which opens an Ajax pop-up - perhaps a simple underline would solve this
Homepage
The visual, flash driven main promotion, used to promote the current latest offers or trends, on the one hand provides an area of stimulation and intrigue for the visitor, but with its lack of instructional or support text can actually be an area of confusion for the visitor. I could imagine visitors wondering what will happen if they click within a certain area, or for the current sale example, how can they see the full range of products on sale.
*UPDATE - whilst producing this user experience review House of Fraser appear to have rectified this by including clear clickable areas within this flash driven promotion.
A suggestion to improve the user experience would be to provide feedback to the user relative to where they move their mouse, for instance having some text that says “Select stainless steel pan set - save up to £15″ appear near to the mouse as you hover over this product. In addition, if there is an actual sale category, providing a clear link to view all the sale products would also provide a more progressive browsing experience.
Top Level Category
Focus on Brands rather than product ranges
Following through on the brand focus, in comparison to competitor retail sites such as John Lewis, House of Fraser have chosen to introduce products through a featured brands section, rather than showing branded products from different categories. On the one hand this limits the variety of product ranges that are being promoted at this level, but it does allow this page to again target the brand hungry shoppers, in turn ticking the persuasion architecture boxes.
Shopping behaviour and personalisation
It is at the top level category page that significant real estate begins to be used to show you previously viewed products. This user focused facility, not often adopted on competitor websites but one of the many integral areas of personalisation adopted by Amazon, is a great way of allowing a user to quickly revisit a product they have looked at earlier and what they liked. By using cookies, without a visitor needing to be registered this already begins to make them feel that the site is working for them rather than a 1 size fits all approach. I expect House of Fraser will also use this stored browser behaviour, especially collected once a visitor is logged in, to provide personalised through-the-line marketing campaigns. I can’t emphasise the power of personalisation enough…
Product Page
Unique, image led
Although not providing a radically different layout to the product page compared to competitors (and therefore remaining consistent with best practice for product pages), House of Fraser have adopted quite an image led user interface, where as you zoom into the image it fills the full width of the product page. With the clever use of transparent backgrounds this doesn’t detract the user from the key functionality on the page (price, title, description, quantity and add to basket), instead it serves to provide a richer experience whilst ensuring the product page acts as a persuasive experience focused on getting an emotional response from the visitor, such as seeing the high quality of the expensive product, therefore justifying the potential expenditure being undertaken.
High quality goods = high quality images
As expected you can zoom and pan around the image, and House of Fraser provides great levels of detail through multiple zoom levels which is vital when trying to sell clothing and other luxury goods online.
Shopping Basket
Minimalism personified
Going very much for a less is more approach, the user certainly isn’t presented by many distractions, although for this key buying process page there are a variety of user experience enhancements I would recommend House of Fraser considering. These focus on continuing the persuasion architecture approach and ensuring visitors have all the necessary information which they need to decide on committing to the checkout process:
- visitors being made aware of what credit cards and payment options are available, using an unobtrusive link and a Ajax pop-up (an approach adopted on product pages)
- another large checkout button at the bottom of the basket, especially for visitors who have large baskets and scan through them before proceeding to checkout
- the standard delivery charge of £4.00 be applied to the basket, with a related message informing users that they can specify a different delivery option within the checkout process
- a link to explain about promo codes - where to find them, what do they look like - this again would be an Ajax pop-up
- in addition to showing recently viewed products, I would consider an area to cross sell and up-sell with a focus on brand names, as used throughout the site
Checkout Process
Striving to adopt best practice and reduce abandonment’s
House of Fraser have certainly taken into account the factors which can lead to increased checkout process abandonment’s and I’ve listed here some of the key points I have picked up on:
- for new visitors, providing the key benefits why you should register, thus encouraging users rather than making them seek out the benefits of registering through the help section
- once past the login/register page, the removal of all un-necessary links and functionality (navigation, search facility, mini basket, comprehensive footer) which can distract users and increase checkout process abandonment’s
- providing a clear, industry standard security message to offer re-assurance for visitors wary of shopping online
- a clear process indicator is provided - where I am, how many are stages left - so the user feels comfortable and in control
User Experience and Persuasion Architecture Improvements
As I mentioned at the start of this review there are a variety of areas where I recommend House of Fraser could improve on the user experience. These areas are:
- The Checkout Process
- Creating an Account (Registration) inc. the Recognition Points area
- Browsing and Searching Functionality
- Hamper Shopping
Please contact me directly if you are interested in learning about these recommendations.
Conclusion
Irrespective of the possible user experience improvements that could be introduced, House of Fraser have produced an excellent e-commerce website which perfectly suits its target audience and compliments its high street presence. With a degree of richer user experience functionality introduced, and a clear focus on branding and imagery, whilst adopting very much a user centered design approach and significant persuasion architecture techniques, House of Fraser’s 1st transactional web presence is destined to be a great success and very much a destination website for style and brand driven online shoppers.
So yes, I would say that overall the House of Fraser website is a User Experience triumph!
I’d love to read your views on both this post and the House of Fraser transactional website. How do you feel it compares to their main competitors such as John Lewis? Can you identify any user experience improvements?
