‘Automotive Parts & Specialty’ E-Commerce UX Audit

Homepage — The homepage structure, design, carousels, personalization, and promotions.

Main Navigation — The visual design of an e-commerce site’s taxonomy, including mega drop-down menus, the visual hierarchy, and courtesy navigation.

Site Taxonomy — The structural component of a site’s product categories, including information architecture, catalog breadth, and category naming. Guide users toward better-defined categories and products using featured products, inspirational paths, and curated content on the intermediary category pages.

Search Query Types — Understand the different types of search queries that users typically submit on e-commerce sites that your site’s search engine needs to support.

Search Form & Logic — Search form design and function, both pre- and post-search, including the design and behavior of the search field, query persistence, and scope selection.

Search Autocomplete — How the autocomplete feature should be designed and function, the types of suggestions it should make (products vs queries), keyboard input behavior, etc.

Results Logic & Guidance — How the autocomplete feature should be designed and function, the types of suggestions it should make (products vs queries), keyboard input behavior, etc.

Results Layout & Filtering — Layout and design of search results and filtering, including dynamic list layouts, search snippets, loading more results, faceted search filters, value truncation, filter naming, dynamic sorting, etc.

List Layout — The design and features of the overall layout of the product list, includes “list” vs. “grid” layouts, product data consistency, post-processing vendor-supplied data, “responsive upscaling” of product lists, etc.

Loading Products — The loading schema for new items loaded into the product list, number of products displayed by default, etc.

List Items: User Interface — The styling and display of the included information such a price, product specifications, variations, units, etc.

List Items: Product Thumbnails — The type of product thumbnails in each list item, what they depict, their size, hover-enabled thumbnails, showing packaging, etc.

List Items: Hover & Hit Areas — The list item’s click behavior, hover effect synchronization, “quick view” features, dynamic amount of content on hover, etc.

List Items: Personalization — Context-aware thumbnails, personalized list item and product attributes, highlighting of items, etc.

Filtering: Available Filters — The type, amount, and specificity of filters users need, incl. thematic filters, product-specific filters, user-defined filters, etc.

Filtering: Scope & Logic — Filtering logic, scope, and naming schemas, such as over-categorization, mutually exclusive filtering values and non-exclusive values (“AND” “OR” logics), filtering tooltips, filter names, filter value consistency, dynamically renaming filters, etc.

Filtering Interface & Layout — Filtering type’s and filtering value’s styling, placement, filter truncation, “Apply” buttons and live updating as filters are applied, the position and styling for applied filtering values, browser history, filter persistence, etc.

Sorting — The default sort type, diversity in sorting logic, the sorting interface and scope, alphabetical sorting, category-specific sort types, sorting directions, sorting naming, etc.

List Layout & Loading — The design and features of the overall product list layout, including grid and list layouts, breadcrumbs, how to approach novel navigation methods, avoiding the subdivision of product lists, and how to load items in a product list.

List Items: Product Info & Thumbnails — What product information and thumbnails to include in each List Item, how to format and display it, indicating product type and variations, and more.

List Items: Interface & Hit Areas — Visual presentation of information and arrangement of interface elements within List Items, including showcasing unique product features, proper labels for numeric specs, etc.

Filtering & Sorting: Filter & Sort Types — Filtering types users need to narrow product lists to a manageable selection, including thematic filters, user-defined ranges for numeric filtering values, compatibility filters, ‘New Arrivals’, etc. Also, the sorting interface and scope, including the sort types needed by users, default sort type, sorting directions, why most alphabetical sorting should be avoided, how to implement sorting by “User Ratings”, and more.

Filtering: Scope & Logic — Common pitfalls and optimizations such as avoiding filter attributes as category scopes, explaining industry-specific filters, and allowing multiple filter values of the same filter type to be combined.

Filtering: Interface & Layout — Layout and interface styling details that can influence the discoverability of filters, how to visually nest sidebar categories, when to truncate filters, and why sites should consider a horizontal unified sorting and filtering tool.

Product Page Layout — How the 4 predominant PDP layouts (“Horizontal Tabs”, “Sticky TOCs”, “Collapsed Sections”, “One Long Page”) perform, and which layouts to avoid.

Product Images & Gallery UI — The 3 different product image types users generally need, the number of images needed, and how large sites can approach some of the image sourcing. Optimizing the imagery gallery UI, including image navigation, how to zoom images, overlays, default image size, etc.

The ‘Buy’ Section, Shipping & Returns — Design and position of elements such as the “Add to Cart” button, prices & discounts, the quantity field, “Out of Stock” items, “Save” features, etc. What shipping and return info to include on the PDP and how to display it, how to best present “Free Shipping” and “Find in Store” features.

Product Description & Specification Sheet — How do users engage with and rely on product information and descriptions, the type of content needed, product headlines, sub-titles, etc. Also, the spec sheets, what features to include, and the importance of post-processing of vendor data.

User Reviews — How to implement the user review submission form, as well as review filtering, sorting and navigation, rating distribution summaries, and more.

Cross-Sells & Cross-Navigation — Cross-sell design, placement, and logic, as well as cross-navigation elements such as breadcrumbs, ‘Recently Viewed’, parent category links, etc.

Shopping Cart & “Added to Cart” Behavior — Implementation of the shopping cart page and “Added to cart” confirmation ((drop-down cart, overlay, etc.), including item information, quantity selectors, “Save” features, and navigation to the shopping cart.

Account Selection & Creation — The ability for users to sign in, create an account, or continue as a guest during checkout, including account selection designs and communication, “Delayed Account Creation”, password rules, etc.

Customer & Address Information — Form fields for all personal user data, including privacy concerns, shipping and billing addresses, international addresses, phone fields, address auto-detection techniques, etc.

Shipping & Store Pickup — Everything related to delivery selection, including the shipping method UI, shipping descriptions and costs, order cut-off times, ‘Free Shipping’ tiers, how to integrate and display ‘Store Pickup’ and ‘Store Availability’.

Payment Flow & Credit Card Form — The payment methods interface integrating and displaying third-party payment methods, charging in international currencies, coupon code form fields, and more. Also, credit card field design, card validation logic and formatting, expiration date, security code, cardholder name inputs, field sequence, and card type selection.

Form Fields & Page Design — Layout and design of checkout process steps, including the design and position of the cart link in the site-wide header and the primary button throughout checkout; minimizing form intimidation, avoiding multi-column layouts, using “Enclosed Checkout” designs, etc.

User Interactions & Distractions — Common interactive components, including load indicators, providing feedback on user actions, where to avoid “Apply” buttons, embedding content from third-parties, and more.

Validation Errors & Data Persistence — Error recovery and address validation, how to improve users’ ability to locate, understand, and resolve errors, design and logic of ‘address validators’.

Field Design & Input Optimization — Form elements, inputs, and selections, choosing the right type of interface, which types of field masking and character restrictions to avoid, pitfalls of drop-downs and radio buttons, custom designed input fields, and more.

Order Review & Confirmation — How to design the final Review step, including the “Place Order” button placement, necessary review data, along with the editing flow for those users who need to change data. Also, the implementation of post-purchase confirmations, including the information and actions needed on the confirmation page and order confirmation email.

Account Drop-Down & Sign In — Where to place the “Account” drop-down menu, what account features to include, how the “Account” drop-down should be structured and styled, and some aspects of sign in, password reset and account lockouts, “Soft” sign in, automatically signing users out of accounts, and where users should be sent after sign in.

Account Dashboard, Info, & Navigation — Optimizing the account dashboard, including using a sidebar or ‘Cards’ for navigation, providing paths to all features, limiting ads, and using icons. Option to edit addresses, set default addresses, update saved credit cards, newsletter frequency and ‘unsubscribe’ options, confirmation messages, and “Apply” buttons. Layout and structure of information and navigation, what to include in site-wide courtesy navigation, describing complex flows or features, and helping users find and understand self-service features.

Mobile Basics — Content and structure of mobile site vs. desktop site, size and spacing of of hit areas, multiple hit-areas within the same visual element, font-sizes, landscape mode, bugs and quirks vulnerable to the mobile platform, auto-zoom, etc.

Mobile Site Homepage & Main Navigation — Main navigation design and logic, double-hit area issues, homepage structure and design, auto-rotating carousels, etc.

Mobile Search — User’s crossover from category navigation to search, search scopes, misspellings and synonyms, search query support, “No results” pages, Faceted Search filters, etc.

Mobile Product Lists — List item size, product thumbnail size relative to product type, amount of product attributes in list items, hit areas within the product list, separation of list items, pagination vs. load more vs. endless scrolling, visual indicators, product variations, list item interactions on a touch screen, etc.

Mobile Filtering & Sorting — Styling and position of both “filter” and “Sort” options, sort types, “apply” buttons vs. auto-applying filtering values, the display of applied filters, information scent, product status, filtering interface, etc.

Mobile Cross-Navigation & Compatibility — Interlinking of compatibility-dependent products, cross-sells, list item consistency, etc.

Mobile Product Page Layouts — Product page structure, sub–product pages, collapsed product page sections, user reviews, “add to cart” button placement, “Store Pickup”, etc.

Mobile Product Images — Product image size, product image zoom levels, image ambiguity, touch gestures in the image gallery, etc.

Mobile Product Descriptions, Specs, & Compatibility — Division of product info between description and spec list, styling of product description, amount and level of specs included, product compatibility information and relationships, etc.

Mobile Shopping Cart — Cost estimates, number and placement of “checkout” buttons, saving mobile carts, picking up mobile carts on desktop devices, etc.

Mobile Checkout Steps — Account creation and guest checkout, shipping and billing addresses, shipping methods, “Store Pickup”, payment, order review, linear checkout flows, mobile process steps, etc.

Mobile Checkout UX — Optional vs. required fields, minimizing number of fields, form field label placement in smartphone portrait and landscape modes, inline labels, floating labels, grouping checkout info for mobile overview, field context, location detection, touch keyboard auto-correct, optimized keyboards, auto-capitalization, etc.