A Usable Summary of Discount Usability Engineering

            What follows is a five point Discount Usability Engineering approach developed through study of many other DUE approaches.  It is meant to be simple and concise in order to maintain maximum ease of use.  This summary should include the reason that usability itself is needed.  This reason is presented in the section “Why is usability important in E-Commerce?” of The Paper

 

1. Know your users.

Discount Usability Engineering always starts with one principle.  This is to simply know your user.  Begin by asking questions like,

·         Who uses your Web site?

·         Who buys your products?

·         What would they want to see?

If a developer knows the answers to these questions, and keeps them in mind, he immediately begins to create sites that are more user-oriented, and therefore more useable.

 

2. Watch your users use your website.

            Creators of tools naturally use those tools with ease.  Unfortunately, the creator is not the user.  Watching only five people use your site can reveal many specific problems that you would have never come up with on your own:

1.       Ask a user to use your website and speak aloud about the choices he/she is making

2.       Watch the user and take notes

3.       Apply what you learn

 

3. Navigation

            The top two reasons users click away from sites are confusion and the fact that they can’t find what they’re looking for.  You might not have what they want in the first place, but if you do, then you want them to find it easily.  These are simple ways to make your site more navigable:

·         2-3 clicks to any solution

·         Effective search engines

·         2 things always in view:

·         useful functions (i.e. shopping cart)

·         system status (where am I? - simple urls can help this)

·         Be consistent across the whole site

·         Don’t use frames

 

3. Latency (download time)

Second only to navigability, slow download time is listed by users as the reason they click away from a site.  To ensure users can access your pages:

·         All pages should be less than 30 Kilobytes

·         This will ensure even modem users download times of less than 8-seconds

·         Server Reliability with the ability to handle peak load times

·         A user should never receive a denial of service

 

5. Simplicity

            Surveys of users consistently reveal that they would rather have sites that download fast and are easy to navigate than sites that are loaded with eye candy.

·         Practice minimalist design

·         Every extra unit of information competes with relevant units of information and diminishes their relative visibility.

·         Also, to maintain simplicity:

·         Don’t use animation

·         Don’t require extra software (plug-ins) to use your site

           

And, B2C specific Points:

            These points are formulated in response to the top problems listed by users regarding B2C E-Commerce sites. 

  1. Put extra effort into giving product information.
  2. Never force disclosure of any user information before it is necessary.
  3. Make shipping information clear even before a user makes a move to purchase.
  4. Security information should be clear and concise.
  5. 1-800 number and physical location should be available.

 

References

-          Super Easy Usability Testing at WebWord.com http://webword.com/moving/easytesting.html

-          Stupid Ecommerce Tricks: Five Real Ways Top Web Sites Drive Customers Away http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/story/story_2359.html

-          Web Usability at Monash http://www.its.monash.edu.au/web/slideshows/usability/all.htm

-          8 Quick Tips for a More Usable E-commerce Web Site at WebWord http://webword.com/moving/8quick.html

-          Don't hide key e-commerce information at ZDNet http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/0,14179,2830115,00.html