Erlend Wilhelmsen

Is your site on message?

So you can measure how many seconds it took for your web site users to find the product page. Great! But how do you know if your audience gets your brand message? Are they hearing what you're saying? This is a bit more complex than measuring task completion - the holy grail in much of user experience testing. However, it's as important if not more important, to understand how well your message is communicated. After all, isn't clear communication always at the center of brand building?

Checking out?

You've been there. Got your bag full of goodies from zyx.com - entering the check out process. Hmmm - what happened? Shipping charges, tax, no review page, and now the company wants to know your work and home address. The check out process and information found on those 4-5 pages are perhaps the most important pages for any e-retailer. Here's a few tips on how to get it right:

Make sure you inform customers about tax and shipping charges before they enter the check out process. Surprises doesn't boost shoppers confidence when they are about to give you their credit card number.

Remove global navigation and any other potential distractions. You want shoppers to move forward so make the "continue" button the pot of honey (make it a unique color for example).

Provide enough information on shipping, taxes, security, and privacy to show that you really care about those things that (research show) are the top concerns of every online shopper.

Describe your money back guarantee. You have one right? This is something everyone cares about.

Entice shoppers to complete their purchase by offering 10% discounts on their next purchase. Yes, retailers have been doing this for some time. You may find that it works online as well. Just make sure the offers are related to completing the purchase and not disctracting from that task.

What's important to you when you are shopping online? Had any bad experiences with e-retailers lately?