San Diego ecommerce meet-up presentation held on March 20, 2014 at Miva Merchant

1. ecommerce and
UX Best Practices
Donna Sandsmark, Miva Merchant

2. Real-world example
Hi Donna,
Wanted to get your thoughts on a UI issue.
When a business creates an RFI, the system puts them on the first tab of the
form and instantly reflects an error message (on required fields) even though
they really hadn't started inputting yet....and each tab they go to another
group of errors will show at the top throughout the same form before filling
anything out. (See attached)
Q: Not sure if that is a good thing or bad thing but have some concerns that
showing errors before a user even starts data entry can be agitating to a user?
Just curious on your user experience and thoughts on the subject.

3. Here is the “user experience”

4. Some decisions are not that easy
• Form Labels: http://attardi.org/labels/
• “Everyone loves a sale”

5. What is UX
• UX is User Experience
• The core principle is to know your users and build a superior
experience by their standards
• There are best practices but every website solution is unique
• ecommerce provides many challenges because of the very
nature of users’ interaction with the site, such as locating
products and navigating the checkout process

6. The UX process
Research – gather
detailed data
about users
Create User
Profiles/Personas
Define the key
objectives of the
user
Detail the key
user journeys
Design and
Develop for user
goals
Conduct user
Testing

7. Why care about UX?
Your Customers Will Respond To A First-Rate User Experience:
• Improved user experience translates into measurable benefits for
companies that provide it.
• Consumers have options, and will opt to your ecommerce site
only if it provides a superior UX experience (and the opposite is
true)
• UX is the equivalent of traditional retail establishment’s customer
service

8. Benefits of positive UX for ecommerce sites
More customers will be willing to purchase.
14.4% more customers are willing to continue purchasing from an ecommerce site if they had a
positive user experience than companies in the same industry that offer a poor customer
experience.
More customers will resist doing business with competitors.
Companies that offer the best UX experience in their industries have 15.8% fewer customers
likely to do business with a competitor.
More customers will recommend you.
Companies with the highest UX experience scores have 16.6% more customers who are likely to
recommend their products or services compared with their lowest-scoring competitors.
Reference: “Best Practices In User Experience (UX) Design report by Forrester Research Inc.

9. UX Best Practices - resources
• http://www.nngroup.com/articles/e-commerce-usability/
• http://spyrestudios.com/usability-best-practices-for-ecommerce-websites/
• http://uxdesign.smashingmagazine.com/2013/11/11/guidelines-navigation-
categories-ecommerce-study/
• http://uxdesign.smashingmagazine.com/2012/09/04/the-state-of-e-
commerce-checkout-design-2012/

10. Summary
UX is crucial for ecommerce success. Since a happy customer will
most likely return, making the experience a positive one must be
one of the main objectives for online stores.
Also, we should keep in mind that while adhering to UX guidelines
and best practices is a must, every store and their customers (users)
are unique.
That is why constant usability testing and collecting customer
feedback must be an ongoing activity for any e-commerce
website.

11. Thank you – Q&A
First question:
what is the score of the SDSU Game?