"Web site designers at e-commerce companies may be feeling repressed these days because growing customer demand for site usability is limiting designers' freedom to employ the beloved bell-and-whistle."
and if that doesn't start a conversation, I don't know what would.
, from oldest to newest:
I think that it is interesting that author treats "bells-and-whistles" and ease-of-use as conflicting.
Having spent the last year watching hundreds of hours of people shopping, I'd say that there is tremendous room for design innovation. Our research shows that most sites are leaving a lot of money on the table because of their designs.
I think it would be horrible to "standardize" on today's layouts, as stated in the article. ("Elements of these standards are simple paradigms like navigational tabs across the tops of pages, section navigation on the left, and product categories and subcategories presented on home pages.") These elements do so poorly at getting shoppers to purchase today -- they definitely need closer inspection.
The article implies that it's a problem with designers are innovative. I don't believe this. The problem, in my opinion, is that we don't have decent feedback mechanisms to instantly tell us if our designs are making things better or worse.
Case-in-point: Our feedback mechanisms are so bad that Yahoo has to put together a survey to ask people if they hate pop-ups. Here we are, 12 months after pop-ups first started appearing someplace other than porn sites and we have to ask if people find them annoying. (The person at Yahoo who thinks the answer might come back as "no" already has their own personal hell all picked out for them.)
We need more research and development on feedback mechanisms that allow us, as designers, to learn from our design processes in real time. Until this happens, we'll continue to see a backlash to any design innovation that doesn't make life easier.
Posted by Jared Spool @ 11/22/2001 01:53 PM pst
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I agree that we need better research mechanisims. The advertising and direct mail media have excellent research and testing facilities. It seems that Amazon runs their continual testing of interfaces through similar testing. The Web allows for more instant feedback and more opportunities for jumping in and asking why a user in an e-commerce site abandoned their cart with six items.
In part I think the reliance on the click-through rate mentality influenced the lack of testing early. But, my idea should be more broadly tested before it goes forward.
History shows us that other medium tested heavily and spent the money to test messages and vehicles for delivering that message. The Web cropped up and we spent money on technology, design, and growing. It seems that the testing is coming to being in this medium. I hope the testing continues as it helps the companies know their customers and makes for a better digital world.
Posted by vanderwal @ 11/22/2001 08:29 PM pst
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I think we can all agree that pop-unders/overs are annoying.
However, the problem comes when we find that these 'dirty tricks' do help click rates.
My old company - an online recruitment site - carries banner ads of various sizes; we have, in the past, used pop-ups to highlight particularly important information (a requirement to update a CV / Resume or revise Job Mailouts for example). And we did see click-rates higher than inline or navigation links to the same content.
The quality of these click rates when applied to - say - a commerce site is probably an issue, but you can't fault the marketing people who notice an increase from 0.5% click rate to 1.8%. Especially when his advertising client is demanding accountability and increased sales.
It *appears* that although people may not like pop-overs/unders, they do click them.
One of your posters who mentioned the banner ad arms war is correct - I think we're about to see the tipping effect come into play...
ChrisFord
Posted by Chris Ford @ 11/23/2001 09:18 AM pst
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