Maya Angelou quotes, “I have learned people will forget what you said, people, will forget what you did, but will never forget how you made them feel.”
In personal life, this quote also sums up how a business or entrepreneur can achieve the predetermined goals for his business. Of course, creating a comfort zone for customers is a trait you need to bag, but is it just restricted to an in-person meeting? No, to turn every visitor or potential customer into a loyal one, you need to make them feel good while they visit your online portal as well.
Wondering, how will you implement it? Improving UI and UX experience is all you need to focus on to turn the tables. Said that, here’s a quick fact check that will help you understand what we are trying to say.
Fact 1: 88% of online shoppers say they won’t return to an eCommerce platform after a bad user experience.
Fact 2: 44% of shoppers share their bad online experience with friends, so you lost your future customers as well.
70% of online businesses fail due to the poor usability of their platform.
The numbers are enough to attest to the importance of the UI and UX role in determining the success of an eCommerce platform. So, if you are an owner or planning to develop one, here’s what you need to know and then hold it firmly to gain profitable results.
Let’s get started!
Understanding UX
UX stands for user experience. All the different approaches incorporated on a web platform to ensure that the platform is tailored to your target market are user experience. If you fail to offer an easy-to-use, intuitive and inviting UX, you will remain unnoticed.
Even being the very core of every website, it is something that most people ignore. And thus, the journey of losing customers begins here.
Understanding UI
User Interface (UI) refers to the visual part of an online platform that determines how a user will interact with a website and how information gets displayed on the screen. User interface Is composed of visual design, interaction design, and information infrastructure. Having a great UI means you focus perfectly on enhancing usability and the user experience.
Why is UI & UX important for e-commerce business?
Attract and engage users
With every correct approach induced to enhance user experience, you get one step closer to understanding what could work. Every time a new user visits your platform, keep in mind that their first few steps are critical.
As said, first impressions are critical in determining whether they’d continue browsing or will leave. But with the proper UX and UI, you can create an environment for users that force them to keep digging into your platform.
Business growth
UI/UX focuses on the users’ satisfaction, and as a result, it ultimately uncovers the business’ success. Your platform is the only medium that can influence potential customers’ decision of choosing your services or not.
The more you influence such customers, the more you build brand value and grab users’ attention. And eventually, this gets converted into business growth and revenue and is crucial to the business’s reputation.
User retention
The secret of keeping your customers coming back time and again to use your platform is giving them a great UI and UX experience. Facebook is the best example of a company that has engaged with customers for many years, with more than 1.52 billion people logging in every day.
These users are known to be the daily active users, and the percentage increases year over year with an average of 9 percent.
Some critical factors for user retention around UI/UX; are continuous tweaks and redesigning features based on data and feedback.
User-centric platform
A user interface developed to empathize with people is the best of its kind. Of course, we mean that you need to ace the skill of understanding how a users’ group will use your platform. However, other fundamental principles need to be incorporated and empathy to achieve a user-centric design.
The ball automatically falls in your court if you design for the users and their requirements. So, keep in mind to maximize usability, you need to have an iterative design, which consistently and gradually improves the overall platform design. You can do so by evaluating data from the early stages.
Simplified use
The combination of good UI/UX makes the perfect solution for developing an easy-to-use eCommerce platform for a specific target market. Likewise, the comfort of your customers is also a priority, hence the invention of eCommerce applications and devices.
Your platform should be designed so that users can browse without any obstructions. You will engage users and generate additional revenue the simpler your platform is.
For instance: Have you ever wondered why most apps keep their menu at the bottom instead of the usual top menu? This pattern is highly effective. It makes navigation easier because it remains in the same position no matter what page your user view.
How to improve UI & UX for e-commerce business?
Make the landing page more informative.
The homepage of your eCommerce website should be designed to serve the all-in-one purpose. Since it functions as the window to your eCommerce store, it should provide your users with every required direction and assistance.
In addition, it should act as the first point of contact between your platform and target audience. Therefore, focus on making your homepage accessible and usable to deliver an excellent eCommerce user experience.
Work towards responsive designs
A survey released by Google states that the purchase rate of eCommerce sites reduces by over 60% when people have poor experiences on mobile devices.
Additionally, 70% of online shoppers return to responsive websites, and more than 65% of people bombard responsive websites for shopping.
Responsive web design makes for a better eCommerce user experience and offers benefits to search engines. One such benefit, according to Google, is the fact that it deals with only a single URL per page.
Simplify the navigation
eCommerce UX patterns have confirmed enough that the consumers tend to stop by websites that are easy to navigate. From your point of view, the efficiency of your website is defined by the revenue it generates. A great design will not do much good if it does not lead to desired sales levels. This is where simplified navigation plays a key role.
You need to address some aspects to get the navigation right.
- The number of products on offer
- Search history enabled navigation
- Suggesting next logical steps
- Use of symbols, signifiers, and slide-outs
Improve page scannability
The effect produced by using different formatting and writing techniques induced for making people read all the content they get to see online is called Scannability. This factor plays an essential role in eCommerce UX and UI design.
As per a report released by the Nielsen Norman Group, people are prone to scanning and skimming the content in search of specific words or sentences instead of reading word to word.
Optimize landing pages effectively.
Another practical eCommerce UX best practice includes the optimal use of landing pages. A landing page refers to a standalone web page designed specifically for every specific section of your target audience by offering them a more tailored experience. This is done to increase conversion rates.
Smoothen the checkout procedure
80% of people tend to leave a website when they find the checkout procedure complicated.
Therefore, your checkout page stands to be the most crucial page of your platform. Humans tend to get frustrated quickly and lose patience, thus reducing the steps of your checkout process. Embrace foolproof optimization strategies with minimum effort. Adding authentic payment gateways, offering free shipping are some ways to maximize your profits.
Eye-catchy call-to-action
A compelling call-to-action has a powerful impact on conversion rates. It is a crucial element that triggers shoppers to take immediate action and react to the content displayed on a webpage. In addition, a good CTA is simple, attractive, and stands out from the rest of the website content.
Be very particular about contact and address.
A key aspect of building an impeccable design is having the contact information at the right place of your website. It may appear as part of the header or footer or the pre-scroll area depending on where it aids in increasing conversion.
But talking about eCommerce websites where users might need to get in touch very often, having contact information in the pre-scroll area would be best.
However, wherever you place, make sure it is not hard to find as this may end in frustrating the users, and ultimately they will leave your website. Also, all contact numbers should be clickable, and the addresses should open up in maps.
Finally, don’t forget to add links to your social media accounts. Focusing on these seemingly simple aspects can take you long to uncover profitable opportunities and offer a better eCommerce user experience.
Use right images
Humans have a photogenic memory; thus, images pave a powerful way to grab the attention of your target audience. Using the right kind of high-quality images helps your brand stand out by enhancing the user experience.
It is a move in the right direction, and the best way to accomplish this is by following the practice of using high-resolution images.
Not only do the images hold the potential to convey messages more effectively than text, but also they do wonders in crossing language barriers with ease.
Stay ahead of user expectations.
With everything getting digitized and shoppers getting online, the businesses offering a quick and seamless eCommerce experience are most likely to win the rat race. The critical ingredient of setting a bar is to swear by all the above factors and induce them rightly in your platform. You should be known for offering experiences as close to the real world as possible, authenticity, fast shipping, and access to accurate information promptly.
As said, change is the only constant. For instance: years ago, that may have been seen as good eCommerce UX is now a pain point today. Customers, after all, have evolved, and they now stop by at platforms that offer added elements of inspiration and delight. So if you aspire to attract new customers and retain your target audience, you need to go above and beyond.
