Paul Rouke and PRWD on User Centered Design

After our branding and marketing strategy work we are delighted to officially launch UCDcommerce, our best practice driven e-commerce platform.

This follows our recent posts on what symbolises customer conversion, an inside look at brand concepting, and strapline brainstorming for UCDcommerce.

UCDcommerce Website Features

If you’ve not already taken a look at the UCDcommerce site, below is a summary of what we have decided to launch with:

An introduction to the platform, explaining how UCDcommerce allows us to deliver User Centered Designed e-commerce solutions

A page dedicated to why your business will benefit from using UCDcommerce, including the statement that “your business recognise the importance of user experience for increasing brand credibility, conversion and retention”

A page showing prospective e-commerce customers exactly who is behind the platform, the amount of credibility and blue chip experience we have, and our expert usability services

Additional areas we have included are:

• A definition of User Centered Design (UCD) for people who aren’t familiar with this method of designing user experiences
• Dynamic links into our most recent articles, on the subjects of UCDcommerce, retailing and best practice

Onwards and upwards

Alongside the development of our Content Management System and ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system, the continual evolvement of UCDcommerce will now begin in earnest, as we attract the right type of serious online retailers to our business.

I am absolutely delighted to announce the 1st phase launch of PRWD’s bespoke e-commerce platform, UCDcommerce, with our 1st client to use the platform being one of our long term clients, Contact Packaging.

The e-commerce site, selling a complete range of packaging materials and supplies, from masking tape and bubble wrap through to cardboard boxes and stretch wrapping machinery, has been designed by myself and developed by one remarkable technical architect and developer, Sam Clark. You may like to read Sam Clark’s initial thoughts on the e-commerce platform.

At this stage you may be wondering ‘why develop a completely new framework and platform when there are so many existing e-commerce providers out there?‘.

And my answer, as user experience director of PRWD, is this…

Our clients, both existing and potential, demand a scalable, best practice driven, intelligent and user focused e-commerce platform on which PRWD can develop bespoke e-commerce solutions to revolutionise their business online.

To give an example as to the type of e-commerce platform which may have supported this answer, our 1 main consideration was becoming a partner with Elastic Path, who have developed E-commerce Software which is used by the likes of Samsonite and Bond & Bond. BTW having looked at these 2 e-commerce sites I must stress they don’t follow our principles on e-commerce findability and user experience, but they may be worth a look all the same.

Complete control over the evolution of our E-commerce Platform

Rather than the partner route, our commercial decision was to develop a new framework (fortnum) and in-house platform, to ensure we had complete control of how the e-commerce platform would evolve, in key areas such as:

• customer intelligence
• CRM system integrations
• user functionality
• user engagement
• embracing and integrating with new technologies

The launch site is only the very start of what will technically be a continually drive in tackling the areas above, and in user experience is just our 1st interpretation of what will drive online sales for this particular client.

There are currently some known usability flaws which need addressing, of which I’m sure other usability professionals will recognise, but with this e-commerce store being in its launch phase there will be scope and budget to address them going forward.

In time I intend posting articles explaining the user centered design process that was adopted during this 1st development, with features on particular areas of the site including:

• user centered navigation and findability
• user engagement
• learnability
• consumer browsing behaviour targeting
• addressing security concerns
• the best practice driven checkout process

Comments please…!

I welcome comments from any readers of my blog and other usability professionals and technical architects and developers - and most importantly comments from online shoppers!

Forms - such an integral part of any website wishing to gather visitor data to allow for transactions to be carried out, logging in to account areas, website personalisation, registrations, competition entries, the list goes on.

Although in principle forms are simply different drop downs, text entry boxes and preference setting checkboxes and radio buttons, the visual and coding execution of forms can be the difference between an abandoned shopping journey and a new customer transaction, registration or application.

Checkout process forms

Crucial to an e-commerce websites success, these forms in general request personal information, delivery information and finally payment information.

Best practise advice for checkout process forms

• ensure a visitor is provided highly visible and clear sign-posting as to a) how many steps are in the process flow b) which stage of the process they are in c) which stages have they have completed - view a case study of how I helped improve the checkout conversion at Littlewoods Shop Direct Group, which incorporates the majority of these best practise points
• ensure it is clear to a visitor which fields are required and which are optional
• only request personal information which is required for them to complete the process (ask for more general personal information such as shopping habits and general interests in registration forms and newsletter sign-ups)
• provide context sensitive advice and information to assure wary users who may be unsure as to why they need to supply a specific piece of information, or a good example is visitors unsure what the ‘CSV’ number on the back of their credit or debit card is
• provide relevant security and payment certificates to alleviate safety concerns, especially true for a business without a solid and well know reputation
• allow a user to go back to a previous stage in the process without losing the information they have already keyed in (if this happens visitor frustration will occur, which can quickly be followed by a complete abandonment of the checkout process)
• on submission of form information, where a user has incorrectly entered data or not completed a required, provide friendly, inline messages at the point of the form where the error has occurred, along with an overview at the top of the form as to what fields require attention
• ensure it is clear as to what will be the next occurrence once this submit a form ie. which stage they are moving, whether payment details will be processed by a secure server etc
• prior to finally submitting an order, provide a summary of all the data the user has entered, allowing them (but not encouraging) to edit data if it is incorrect
• once an order has been placed and approved, provide the user with a printer-friendly, clear and user friendly summary of their order details (removing the digits from their credit or debit card of course!)
• errors pages - test, test and further test form processing prior to going live, as a page error (not to be confused with an error message displayed due to an empty required field for instance) displayed to a user is 1 significant way to make the alarm bells for user trust and confidence ring very loudly

I’m sure there will be more comprehensive best practise guides available for checkout process forms, but I hope this provides some tangible and clear guides as to the key areas of this process which I have experienced as having the most impact on conversion and drop-out rates.

Google Checkout is gathering momentum

Leveradging its global brand recognition and trust, Google now offers a new checkout solution, surprisingly titled Google Checkout. For a shopper, once they have provided their personal, delivery and payment details into their secure system once, as they visit E-commerce sites offering Google Checkout the visitor doesn’t have to re-enter all their details. For a seller, simply using a checkout system by such a trusted brand will not only streamline their checkout process for their customers, but the whole online trust issue amongst consumers will be negated, because it is Google.

I will be following the uptake by both consumer and businesses of this new checkout, as I don’t doubt for one second that it will prove to be another highly successful revenue stream for Google.

Form field hints for developers

For developers out there keen to provide inline and context sensitive form field hints, take a look at this interesting article on www.askthecssguy.com entitled form field hints with css and html