2008-01-30T10:15:04-07:00 Practical Ecommerce info@practicalecommerce.com http://www.practicalecommerce.com/ Copyright 2007 Confluence Publishing DBA Practical Ecommerce http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/663/Usability-Report-Card-Ceriellofinefoodscom 2008-01-30T10:15:04-07:00

Joseph Malewicki, the owner of Ceriello Fine Foods, has been an avid reader of Practical eCommerce since its inception. He sells specialty Italian foods at Ceriellofinefoods.com and, when requesting a site-grade, said, “I think I’ve nailed down the info in past issues about usability and navigation problems.” Let’s see if he’s right. Home Page Clarity Successful websites are clear about immediately identifying to the visitor what the site is and what the site is for. Ceriello does a pretty good job of doing this. For example, the URL is descriptive, as is the window title in the browser. The home page has both a category list and a bestselling items list, which includes fine Italian foods. However, the tagline “Fine Italian Food Products” in the site logo is difficult to read. Consider placing the tagline below “Ceriello.” The site also doesn’t have a welcoming statement. This is another opportunity to be explicit about what the site offers and why one should...

http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/635/Usability-Report-Card-Acceptedcom 2007-12-19T14:57:02-07:00

Accepted.com is an admissions consulting and application editing service website. It has requested this usability site grade. Home Page Clarity To ensure credibility and trust, sites that gather customer information should include a “Privacy Policy.” Accepted.com has a link to its at the bottom of the home page. They also have an “About Us” link in the left hand navigation, which is good and links to, among other things, profiles of the editors that customers can choose to edit their CV or college application essay. Accepted.com further increases its credibility by including client testimonials on the right hand side of many pages of the site. In addition, a photo appears beside each quote. Unfortunately, however, the photos are not of the actual client that provided the testimonials, but rather models. More egregiously, the same photo of the model is used for quotes from different people in the site and the syntax of the quotes is sometimes incorrect. For example,...

http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/606/Usability-Report-Card-Lucky-devilcom 2007-11-20T11:22:50-07:00

Introduction Lucky-devil.com’s tag line succinctly states its purpose: “Presents for Kiwis in the UK and NZ” (Kiwis being the nickname for New Zealanders, not the fruit). The site “soft launched” at the start of October before its official launch on Nov. 1, and the owners are committed to making as many improvements as possible in the first couple of months. Let’s see how the initial site fares and where improvements can be made. Home Page Clarity The first page of the site visitors' encounter is not a traditional home page. Instead, it is a page used to determine which version of the website customers need to visit, This depends on whether they want to buy a gift for someone who is living in the UK or New Zealand. Lucky Devil does ship to other countries, but this defeats one of its unique selling propositions: The ordered products are only sent locally, which reduces carbon emissions, and shipping to other countries is discouraged. The landing page for each...

http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/574/Usability-Report-Card-Babyplanetboutiquecom 2007-09-26T14:42:45-07:00

Canadian-based Babyplanetboutique.com strives to provide parents with unique, useful baby products at affordable prices. The site’s owner Danielle Burgi is a nominee for Savvymom Mompreneur of the Year. An impending upgrade to the site, coupled with a new shopping cart system, which will offer customers new features such as a gift registry, inspired her to put the site forward for this Usability Report Card. Home Page Clarity Baby Planet Boutique’s home page suffers from having no products visible “above the fold.” Instead, the top of the body of the page is currently devoted to information about the Mompreneur of the Year Award website (including a link). Below this is a large area devoted to the possibility of the customer winning a $25 gift certificate, as well as the guarantee of receiving a coupon code for five percent off their next order if they sign up for the site’s newsletter. Unfortunately, increasing the chance of winning the award through customer...

http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/543/Usability-Report-Card-Arenaflowerscom 2007-08-17T10:57:36-07:00

Arenaflowers.com is a United Kingdom based website that primarily sells fresh flowers. On the verge of its one year anniversary, the ebusiness wanted to get an external perspective on how its website was doing. Homepage Clarity Arena Flowers’ homepage does a good job of stating its value proposition of buying direct from auctions in Holland for freshness, cutting out the middleman for savings and free delivery on all bouquets. Prominence is also given to the fact the organization is the first United Kingdom florist to sell “Fair Flowers, Fair Plants (FFP)” accredited flowers and plants. This guarantees its products have been grown in an ethically and sustainable manner, which is an increasing concern for consumers. All of the important information that needs to be accessed easily is above “the fold.” The page area below “the fold” is chiefly devoted to informational links such as Terms and Conditions, Privacy Policy, Sitemap and Guarantees. Excellent, large...

http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/535/Usability-Report-Card-Make-These-Tweaks-Before-Growth-Occurs 2007-08-08T10:38:14-07:00

Artistream.com was formed to expand the artistic markets and opportunities for Native Americans and has ambitious expansion plans for itself. Currently, Artistream.com is a fairly basic website that lists all the prints and sculptures the artists have available for sale. The site was chosen in part because it does its product pages fairly well, but aspects of its navigation poorly. Home Page Clarity and Navigation Artistream.com has a clean home page that suffers from an unnecessarily large welcoming paragraph, and its three-fourths of a page of white space could be utilized to feature more thumbnail photos and descriptions of the available artwork. The home page has two navigation menus: A left-hand navigation menu to access the artwork for sale, and two further menus sandwiching the main banner logo which, runs across the top of the page. Unfortunately, some of the menu titles are white text on a tan background, which offers little contrast, and may make it difficult for...

http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/523/Usability-Report-Card-Acihoistcom 2007-07-18T09:47:06-07:00

Alan Gonzalez at ACI Hoist & Crane, Inc. recently inherited the responsibilities for the company's website, Acihoist.com, and its ecommerce push. He is in the early stages of improving the site's navigation and content, but asked for a site review. Gonzales said the plan is “to do a site rebuild from the ground up.” We have some suggestions for the website that would be beneficial to consider during the overhaul. Home page clarity: ACI Hoist & Crane’s home page does a reasonable job of explaining who they are, what they sell and why the customer should choose them. However, the compelling benefits of shopping with ACI such as “factory-direct pricing” and “30 percent to 50 percent savings over other major brands” are buried below the fold. There is also a lot of unproductive white space available on the right of the screen where these key points could be displayed, as well as a place for more images of their products. Home page navigation: ACI’s product...

http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/495/Critique-Part-Five-Customer-Experience--Usability 2007-06-06T08:46:46-07:00

The Problem: A blob of home-page text greets the consumer. The Fix: The home page could be improved by relocating its long introduction to either the bottom of the page or, preferably, to the "about us" section. This would free up enough space to display twice as many products as those currently listed, with room left over to promote sale items or the company's offer of free shipping on orders more than $65. The Problem: Out-of-stock items are not always identified as such. The Fix: In some instances this useful information is displayed below product photos but in a difficult-to-scan format. Attempting to buy a single keychain resulted in this strident but amusing error message: "Unable to Add Product: Volcom Skibby Keychain To Your Cart (Msg: Not Enough In Stock. Try A Lower Qty!)." In this instance, trying to order with a lower quantity would mean ordering zero -- which would definitely not solve the customer's problem. Error messages that state the problem in a...