After you have defined your product categories and how to structure them (see Usability and e-commerce Part 1) you are ready to define the product pages. Let’s start with the product overview page:

1. It is recommended, that the product overview pages follow all a consistent structure. This gives the user the chance to learn your site and with continuing navigation he can orient himself faster.
2. The amount of products presented should allow the user to gain a quick overview.
3. The most relevant questions the user has at this stage should be answered. This allows faster scanning of the products and saves the user possible disappointment on the individual product page itself. This includes the listing of the price and availability.
4. Especially with rather technical or complex products, an online product comparison option is essential to avoid lots of work for the call centre.
5. In addition, sorting functionalities support the user to “customise” the results to his personal needs, such as price, distance, weight, colour etc.

Let’s have a look at two examples buying a Sony Laptop and a new Esprit Jacket:

On the Sony Laptop overview page, the user receives all the essential data he needs.
They even consider the two target groups returning and new customer. The returning one can add the product directly to the shopping cart the new one can add the product to a wish list.
There is the option for product comparison and a sort option.

And the product comparison site: The user can delete rows or columns, start over, get the product advisor and create a PDF for print out and later use.

On the Esprit page as well, the product overview page answers the main questions such as: material, prize, availability, colour selection and new arrivals.

Check out the entire series:

Part 2) Product overview

Part 3) Product presentation

Part 4) Search

Part 5) Check out process

Part 6) The shopping basket

Tags: E-Commerce, Usability, User Experience

This entry was posted on Friday, April 4th, 2008 at 5:09 pm and is filed under Usability. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.