Usability Matters!

Indian Gifts Portal

Persona Based Heuristic AnalysisApplying the collective wisdom of decades of e-commerce usability studies

Indian Gift Giving Psyche

• Gifts are often carefully computed metrics by which social relationships are maintained, challenged, or enhanced.

In other words the paradigm of thought changes when gifts come into play. Its shopping with different priorities.

Persona Profile: Payal Watchmaker• Works at Shantha Biotechnics (P) Ltd• Past: Stanford University• Studied at University of Pittsburgh• Past: St. Joseph's Convent, Bhopal• Brother: Premal Watchmaker – Gurgaon• Listens to Edgar Meyer, Zakhir Hussain etc.• Loves to travel and go hiking• Although is a Parsi living in the US, she still

wants to send a Rakhi to her brother every year, using the occasion to make him feel special, in Gurgaon every year using Indian Gifts Portal

• Is fairly comfortable financially. Especially when you turn dollars into rupees.

• Is married to her long term boyfriend from college who is also a biochemical engineer but does not have any kids.

Cognitive Walk-through• Comes to the site with a budget of $50-100 for the gift and

seeking a fairly simple rakhi to go with it.• Scrolls down, she scans through the collection. • Mentally shortlists a leather bag on display and moves on

to nautical pieces.• Finds that the nautical pieces are very cheap in terms of

price so they may not be of very high quality and since her budget is slightly higher, she scans the left menu for the leather bag. But she doesn’t know what to scan for since she doesn’t remember the exact name of the category, so she presses the back button.

• She clicks on the handbag and goes inside, the bag is more expensive than she had bargained for but it looks like its nicely finished.

• Looks for a shortlist button but can’t find it so settles for ‘adding to cart’. As soon as she clicks on ‘Add to Cart’ she sees the cross sell window, but since she is still to find a Rakhi, she opts to ‘SKIP’ instead of using the ‘Proceed to Checkout’ button.

• The skip button takes her to the checkout page, she fumes but clicks on the top bar where it says ‘Handbags’ wanting to go back to being exactly where she was.

• She clicks on category ‘Leather handbags / Purses’ but goes back since it contains all of the ladies variety. Then clicks on the ‘Wallets for Men’ category to see if she can find a wallet that looks finished but is still in her budget. She is after all, price conscious.

• In the wallets section she is not able to find a wallet that fits into her budget since most displayed are cheaper than that, the few that she is able to find in her budget don’t really fit her taste.

• So she clicks on the ‘Send Rakhi’ tab and starts to find a Rakhi instead, mentally making a note to go back and search some more for a more appropriate gift. The click opens another window where she can see the categories.

• She clicks on the ‘Mouli Rakhis’ since she is looking for a simple thread Rakhi. Her brother is quite a bit older than she is and of sober but classy tastes.

• She finds a Rakhi after a couple of pages adds an accompaniment of ‘cheenikum kaju Katlis’ and clicks on Checkout.

• Once she goes over her shopping cart she realizes that the total is below $60 and she still has not bought something for Bhabi and the kids.

• So she clicks on ‘Home Crafts’ from the top menu. • While scanning the products for something for

bhabi, she scrolls all the way to the end of the pages and back twice before she spies a lamp that her bhabi will appreciate. She clicks on that to buy.

• She finds that she is now paying $83 for the gift, so now she mentally calculates that she is nearly $20 away from a round figure that she can afford.

• So she clicks on toys now seeking to find some toy that both kids can play with at the same time.

• She can’t seem to find a toy that she may like so she clicks on ‘Chocolates’ instead.

• Is looking for an assorted box of good chocolates, first she clicks on the ‘Belgian/Homemade’ link but the Belgian chocolates look more decorative than chocolates, so she clicks on ‘Lindt chocolates’ instead.

• She finds that most hampers are ‘Sold out’ so she clicks on the first available hamper that she can find.

• Clicks on ‘Add to cart’ and checks out.• The ‘Email address’ field is too light to be seen

against her screen so she is a little confused but she finds it and enters her email ID since she is a repeat customer.

• She gets a ‘No email ID & Password match error. So she unclicks the ‘I am a repeat customer’ button and moves forward.

• Checkout goes smoothly and she buys the product.

Overall Impression• Been visiting for three years and the categories still

confuse her a little bit although she knows her way around.• A function that works like the shortlist function may be

needed for comparison shopping. The function can also work as adding to the cart but in a temporary manner so as to become permanent when the user wishes to make it permanent. Can be ‘Confirmed/Unconfirmed/cancelled’ so that the user can view the changes in the total when it happens.

• The need for faceted search is apparent at least allowing for simple choices in ‘Gender’ ‘Price range’ & ‘brand’ to be made

Usability issues

• Categorization re-look needed.• The names of products should be clear as to what

they mean, usually only the decorative word is apparent and the rest of the name gets lost.

• Contrast on forms is less and should be increased.• Navigation in the case of ‘SKIP’ should be fixed, it

should take the person back to the place where they came from. OR there should be a ‘Continue shopping’ button there as well.

Persona Profile – Shruti Joshi• Mother of two in Gurgaon

Haryana• Works at Striker, a pub as a

PR person.• Brother lives in Santa Clara,

California with his wife and two grown up sons.

• Sends Rakhi every year using various websites, likes to order the whole gamut of things. Gifts, Thali, Rakhi etc.

Cognitive Walk-through

• Shruti is searching for a silver Rakhi when she spies Indian Gifts Portal as the first link on google.

• She clicks on the link and goes to the website with the idea of finding a rakhi that her brother will wear for some time, an emotional memento perhaps, but she also knows that her brother will not wear anything remotely feminine, and will not wear anything with religious symbols.

• She has to crawl the entire length of the 2 pages of results that show. The entire display is very confusing. There is no clustering of any sort which shows similar products together. She considers the silver bracelets and discards them because they look to be too feminine.

• She needs a way to block off the silver bracelets and just see the silver & mouli rakhis.

• She cannot find a Rakhi which is finely crafted enough to wear every day. Spies the ‘Sold Out’ Rakhis and clicks on the next page to see if there are any available ones mixed in the results. There she finds a ‘Sun Rakhi’ that is perfect. The design is smooth and the mouli is also fine looking. BUT its sold out.

• So she immediately runs a google search on the name of the Rakhi to see if some other website is carrying it. The only relevant search result that comes is the website itself. She tries again & runs a search on the term ‘silver sun rakhi’ – again she finds that most search results are from the website itself. So she checks out the other links first, one is from a jewellery website with even more feminine looking bracelets and another is from a website which is carrying even cheaper looking versions. So she checks out the links from within Indian Gifts Portal itself.

• While checking out those links she finds a similar Rakhi where the sun motif is smaller but yet it is masculine looking. Even that Rakh is sold out, so she clicks on the link that says ‘Gold Rakhis’. There she finds a protective symbol of the hand in gold. It is tied with a simple mouli and could be worn for some amount of time. Even after being worn, she’d be sure that the rakhi would not be thrown away.

• She adds to cart. On the ‘add to cart’ page she is not able to find the continue shopping button since it is at such low contrast to the rest of the buttons. Once she finds it, she goes back to the page where she was coming from.

• After surfing a bit trying to find a bhabi rakhi, she finds a bhai-bhabhi rakhi set which she feels is more appropriate since the collection of ‘Bhabi’ rakhis only is quite limited. So she removes the gold rakhi from her cart.

• She also shortlists a dry fruit tray which can double up as a rakhi thali.• In the middle of her shopping, she receives a phone call and is distracted.

Takes her 4 hours to return to the same window. She finds a ‘TwistToy’, one which she knows her children find very fascinating so she buys one for her nephew. It’s a laugh because her nephew keeps complaining that she treats him that he’s 12 yrs old.

• She’s redirected to the ‘Add to Cart’ page where she sees her previous shopping has disappeared. At this point she presses the back button several times and is able to find the Bhai-Bhabi rakhi that she had bought earlier. But she finds the process of finding the tray too difficult so she cancels the tray.

• She decides to check out the Rakhi Puja thalis on the USA gift shop. But all the thalis that are available have sweets which are available in the US also. She wants to send something that they won’t get easily in the states. But there is nothing of that sort, so she decides to buy a simple thali from the collection of thalis itself. One that has a very meagre Rakhi since she has already bought a rakhi for her brother and bhabi.

• But she can’t seem to find a way to add sweets to the package, there is no category of sweets.

• She gives up.

Overall Impression

• Why can’t I buy everything separately? There’s simply not enough variety available on the combo packages to contain everything she may need.

• Why does the site forget what I’ve ordered? The collection is nice with everything under one umbrella. But in order to avoid these problems, next year I will shop at some other site in advance.

• Has to agree that this is the best site to come to if she doesn’t have the time but can order everything in one go.

Usability issues• Color of the ‘Continue Shopping’ button is too light against the

background.• Why are some Rakhis viewable in search only? But they are not

present in the relevant search results?• There has to be a way to follow a set pattern in buying something

together or as separate wholes. Perhaps some cross selling on the ‘Add to Cart’ page itself. Or intuitive buttons that suggest the next step in the buying pattern. It could be Birthday Gifts, Anniversary Gifts or whatever, the cross selling offered should fit the buying pattern.

• The session on most shopping sites lasts more than 15 days, if you’ve not logged in. If you are logged in the more efficient behaviour should be keeping the item in the cart for as long as it is not added to or overwritten. You can prompt the user when he’s adding to the cart that there are previously shopped items and give him the option of clear cart & moving on keeping the item in his shopping list.

Persona Profile – Anand Ratn• Young programmer living in

Bangalore working with Tata Infosys.

• Has the typical High Income No Incumbents behavior common to the type.

• Has a girlfriend and sister living back in Bokaro.

• Contemplates using online shopping to send gifts to them.

Cognitive Walkthrough – Persona 3

• Wants to send a BIG teddy bear to his girlfriend on her birthday. She is in Varanasi and he’s in Bangalore. So he wants to send something to make her feel special.

• But since he’s actually saving up for his sisters wedding, he doesn’t have much of a budget. Perhaps 2K is as far as he’s willing to go for everything together.

• Searches for ‘Send Teddy Bear to India’. Gets Indian Gifts Portal as the sixth link.

• Clicks on each link but doesn’t find a ‘BIG’ teddy bear anywhere. Most places there's no way to search for big toys. Although the names of the gifts all contain the size of the teddy bear so the process of elimination is easy.

• At Indian Gifts Portal he finds the ‘Sort by Price’ option so he figures a bigger toy must be more expensive and sees that there is a big bunny soft toy that his girlfriend may like but its out of his budget. So he goes back and starts looking for a deal for a big soft toy.

• Knows about Flipkart so clicks on that link in the sponsored links box. There he not only finds a teddy bear that is in his budget and bigger than this one but also has a combo deal with another toy attached. He reads the reviews below and finds that a person who had given great reviews has posted a few months later that all the fur fell off from that bear.

• So he comes back to Indian Gifts Portal to see if there is a deal available. He looks in the toys category but there seems to be no deal available. In the ‘Flowers’ category he sees combos/hampers which could perhaps be a deal so he clicks on it.

• There he finds hampers that contain everything. Since now he knows how to sort by price, he does so. In the middle of the second page he finds something that fits his budget with chocolates, teddy and flowers but the teddy in that is quite small. Then he spies a discounted deal, a price that fits his budget and the size he has in mind. The good thing is, it also has cake and flowers attached. So he clicks on Add to Cart.

• He was able to buy it without any problems so he liked Indian Gifts Portal for it.

• But a little while later, he received an email saying that they will be able to deliver only after his girlfriend’s birthday.

• He was angry that the site did not tell him that. So he went back to the site and discovered that there was a link that said ‘Delivery in 22 cities only’. He fumed about missing the link but couldn’t do anything but cancel the order.

Overall Impression

• There are combo deals but why aren’t they apparent? He would not have needed to go to Flipkart if the combo deal available here was apparent to him.

• Sorting by size, color and other attributes would have really helped him search.

• The site should have something that makes it clear to which locations delivery happens, and if a delivery will not happen in a location, it should have warned him before taking his money.

Usability issues

• Find-ability is an established issue with the website.

• Building shipping logic into the shopping cart process will help build and keep a customer base. Ambiguity kills more sales than cancelled orders.

• More clarity in shipping including date of delivery, delivery areas and delivery cost via a calculator available everywhere on the site.

Persona Profile: Artur Szarszewski

• Polish Archeologist• Currently is working on

a project on an island in Philippines

• Is very fond of handicrafts of any origin.

• Is interested in buying handicrafts indigenous to India.

Solving Usability Issues

Find-ability. Clarity by Design.

Appropriate system feedback.

Information Foraging

• Users tend to prefer to take small, incremental steps through the information space to find relevant information. They tend to browse – even when they know precisely what they are looking for from the onset.

Menu – Providing Information Scent

• The menu should be broad enough for the user to at least catch the scent of the solution he’s looking for.

• Should be deep enough to lead him on to clicking further or lead him out of the menu by process of elimination.

Flowers Cakes Chocolates Home Décor Clothes & Accessories Toys Festive Gifts Best Buys Flowers

Flowers for RomanceHeart Shaped ArrangementsSerenades (Multi-day)Flowers & TeddyFlowers & Chocolates

Flowers for CelebrationBouquets/ BasketsFlowers & WineVase ArrangementsGood Luck PlantsWedding Car Décor

Not so Happy FlowersFloral CondolencesArtificial Flowers

Premium FlowersDesigner RosesDesigner OrchidsDesigner GerberasDesigner CarnationsDesigner LiliesMixed Designer Blooms

Flower DealsCombos/HampersSpecial Deal FlowersFlowers & SweetsFlowers & Fruits

Less than Rs. 500Rs. 500 – Rs. 1000Above Rs 1000

Flowers on Discount

Flowers by DeliveryExpress Delivery GiftsMidnight SpecialFixed Time Delivery

Flowers By CityDelhiKolkataMumbai & SuburbsBarodaAhmedabadOther Cities>>

Flowers WorldwideUSA Canada UK Australia Other Countries >>

Faceted Navigation

• Done right, faceted navigation provides your customers with a powerful tool to find exactly what they’re looking for, without much effort, among a wide range of merchandise.

But what facets are important?

• sorting by price (which entails showing the price...something that sites STILL regularly fail to do!),

• Providing assistance or information to help shoppers unfamiliar with a product determine what the relevant parameters of consideration might.

Type of FlowerRosesGerberaCarnationsliliesOrchidsMixed Flowers

ArrangementBouquetBunchWreathVase

EmotionLove & RomanceCelebrationsGood LuckSorryCondolencesWedding

HampersFlowers & ChocosFlowers & TeddysFlowers & SweetsFlowers & FruitsFlowers & Wine

Looking for…

Rs.150

Rs. 500

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Type of FlowerRosesGerberaCarnationsliliesOrchidsMixed Flowers

ArrangementBouquetBunchWreathVase

EmotionLove & RomanceCelebrationsGood LuckSorryCondolencesWedding

HampersFlowers & ChocosFlowers & TeddysFlowers & SweetsFlowers & FruitsFlowers & Wine

Looking for…

Sh

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Rs. 5000

Rs.100

Rs. 1000

Rs. 2000

Rs. 3000

Rs. 4000

s d f s f s d f s d f s d f R s R s 5 0 0 0 R s . Rs. 4000

s d f s f s d f s d f s d f R s R s 5 0 0 0 R s . Rs. 150

Type of FlowerRosesGerberaCarnationsliliesOrchidsMixed Flowers

ArrangementBouquetBunchWreathVase

EmotionLove & RomanceCelebrationsGood LuckSorryCondolencesWedding

HampersFlowers & ChocosFlowers & TeddysFlowers & SweetsFlowers & FruitsFlowers & Wine

Looking for…

Rs.150

Rs. 500

Shipping Calculator

Destination

---------------Shipping to

India is always free

Call us at+91

7666102001For any

problems or queries

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Type of FlowerRosesGerberaCarnationsliliesOrchidsMixed Flowers

ArrangementBouquetBunchWreathVase

EmotionLove & RomanceCelebrationsGood LuckSorryCondolencesWedding

HampersFlowers & ChocosFlowers & TeddysFlowers & SweetsFlowers & FruitsFlowers & Wine

Looking for…

Rs.150

Shipping to:

-USA--Oklahoma-

Rs. 56/kg

For orders before 5 PM

today

Date of Delivery:

10/10/2013(5-10 Days)---------------

Free shipping in

IndiaCall us at

+91 7666102001

For any problems or queries

Increase Clarity in Design

• Create groups by color, proximity, shape, and alignment

• Color, shared background and co-location are stronger grouping cues than outlines. (Beck and Palmer, 2002)

• For senior people and people surfing on various tablets and other devices, the contrast should be high on actions

Categorization of Search Results – Brilliant but distracting The categorization of search results is a brilliant idea but the way it is presented takes away from the search results page in terms of clarity. The design should be clearer than this. Sample on the next page.

Rs. 4352$675

Waterproof Office bag

Rs. 6453 $123Hi Max – Sports & Travel Bag

Rs. 2499 $43.99Striped Cloth Strolley

Remove the lines around the products & category labels to reduce visual

clutter and ease scanning.

Rupees and Dollars are different colors to ease price scan for both type of buyers.

The name of the product is shown in full. Names are descriptive and not decorative

Rs. 4352$675

Waterproof Office bagRs. 6453 $123

Hi Max –Sports & Travel Bag - Delivery in India only - Size 14.50 x 8 x 11.5 inch - Colours - Black

Rs. 2499 $43.99Striped Cloth Strolley

Travel Bags

456 Travel Bags

On MouseOver will highlight the row and the product on which the mouse rests.The product will show more details that may make or break the decision of clicking on it

The row will show the category and highlight the number of products in that specific category.

Advantages of Inline Validation

Comparative Analysis

A diagnosis Vis – Vis Industry Standard Best Practices

Checkout Funnel

Payment Made

Shipping info

Login

Add to Cart - 63%

- 14%

- 7%

= 3.2%

Product Selection

Abandon Cart Rate

84%Indian Gifts

Portal

73%Listrack

Abandonment Index

Great Work!

Barring a handful of steps, the site still pretty much follows a pretty good path during the check-out process.

But here’re a few things that are missing…

Step 1: Reduce Ambiguity in Shipping

• Add a shipping calculator button that enables the customer to calculate shipping costs at any time during the shopping process.

Highlight conditions for free shipping wherever there are shipping charges

Step 2: Increase the ‘Save Cart’ time

• Ideally a shopping cart should not lose a product till the product loses its value. In the case of shopping, that translates to anytime between 15 days and a month.

• Save the cart even when the user is not logged in.

• In the case of ‘Add to Cart’, let the user review the contents of the cart and support both functions of ‘Clear and Add to Cart’ ‘Don’t clear and Add to Cart’

PET Recommendations

Persuasion. Emotion. Trust. The three hooks that have been proven to add to the bottom line in e-commerce.

Cognitive Lock-In

• You can obtain web site loyalty without using extrinsic rewards like frequent flyer points or discounted prices.

• Three marketing professors found that customers return to e-commerce web sites because they have already learned how to use the site and that it was easy to learn.

• Going to a different site incurs greater effort (greater "cognitive costs") than re-using the site they already know. The outcome of liking a site and disliking change is called "cognitive lock-in".

Persuade. Connect. Lock in.

Persuasion- Scarcity- Urgency- Social Proof

Build Emotional Bond- Cross Sell- Goals- Lessen Load

Establish Trust- Establish Trust- Match Expectations

- Lock in

Persuade.

Build Scarcity. Build Urgency. Give Social Proof.

How to build Scarcity?

How to build Urgency?

How to build Urgency without a sale?

What is Social Proof?

Connect – Make it Easy

Cross sell to lessen Cognitive Load.Set goals to match their mental model.

Cross Sell Early on in the process

• The earlier in the decision process a product is recommended, the more likely it is that users will choose that product. (Ho and Tam, 2005)

• The focus of cross-selling should be to lessen cognitive load. i.e. the effort it takes to reach the next item on their shopping list.

The Contrast Principle

• One of the most powerful things that can be done to close a sale is to help the customer see the value of something. And that is accomplished by comparing its value to something else

• The user should be able to see more products that fit into the same category while looking at a product. At least one at around the same price, at least one product should be higher priced and one should be lower in price.

Match Goals to Mental Models

• Birthday Gifts are generally – Flowers, cake & Gift. Cross sell whatever is missing from the combo

• Rakhi Gifts generally contain – Rakhi, Mithai, Gift, Lumba etc..

• Since these are multi-step goals, you save the customer cognitive load by offering help achieving the next steps.

Gift Cake Flowers

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Lock In.

Provide Comfort by building Trust.Lessen discomfort by building & matching expectations.

Recognize the Customer to build familiarity & Cognitive Lock In.

Build Trust by Reiterating Security

Build Expectations RightOne size doesn’t fit all anymore. Every delivery is different!

• When will my package reach?

• How much will shipping cost me?

Recognize the customer & serve the right cross sells

Immediate To-Do List• Increase Clarity by de-cluttering the search results page design• Re-do all Mega Menus to hold more descriptive navigational links• Add a shipping calculator• Add a price band• Names of products should be descriptive and not decorative• Increase contrast on all action buttons and forms• Increase ‘Save time’ on the shopping cart to at least 2 weeks for not

logged in and till next login for logged in people. Ask before wiping it clean.

• Provide clear labels enabling customers to find where they are i.e. breadcrumbs, labels that identify that a person is within a category where there are special privileges – no shipping, discounts etc.

• Add inline validation to ease error recovery.

Overall To-Do List• Increase Find-ability

– Add faceted search– Add Cross sell features based on browsing history– Apply the contrast principle to cross selling suggestions– Recognize the user and serve cross sells accordingly.– Add a ‘Social’ element to the site, perhaps something that says ‘We

bought this today’ on the home screen. It does not need to be on every page.Use the bottom of the page for other cross sells.

• Re-categorize according to Card Sorting Study (TBD)• Increase way finding by offering either breadcrumb navigation

that makes sense or none at all