‘Vitamins & Supplements’ E-Commerce UX Audit

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

Category Taxonomy — The overall e-commerce category structure and taxonomy, includes the common issue of “over-categorization”, information architecture, catalog breadth, category redundancy, overly deep or shallow categories, industry-specific naming, etc.

Main Navigation — The main e-commerce navigation design, mega drop-down menus, product navigation and its visual hierarchy, courtesy non-product navigation, etc.

Intermediary Category Pages — How deep in the site hierarchy “Intermediary Category” pages are used (vs. using a product listing page), how the category pages are structured and what content they contain, incl. inspirational paths, featured products, and curated content, etc.

Site-Wide Layout — Site-wide layouts, footers, newsletter dialogs, ad positioning, and return policy links, etc.

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 more.

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

Search Results — Layout and design of search results and filtering, including dynamic layouts, search snippets and loading more results, autocorrecting misspellings, providing a helpful ‘No Results’ page, etc.

List Layout — The design and layout of the product list page, including whether it uses “Grid View” or “List View”, how products beyond the default set are loaded, how many list items to load at once, ads and promos in the list, and how to display variations of single products.

List Items: Supplement Info & Thumbnails — What supplement information and thumbnails to include in each list item and how to format and display it, indicating supplement type, size variations, and more.

List Item Features — Features of product lists that help users compare and assess items more easily — including comparison features, use of swatches for color variations, “Quick Views”, “Add to Cart” buttons, and saving items for later assessment.

List Items: Interface & Hit Areas — Visual presentation of information and arrangement of interface elements within list items, including showcasing unique features, and more.

Filtering: Available Filters — 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.

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.

Sorting — 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.

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

Supplement Images — This topic covers how users rely on supplement images on the supplement detail page and the types of images they need.

Image Gallery UI — Optimizing the imagery gallery UI, including image navigation, how to zoom images, overlays, default image size, etc.

Product Videos & 360-Views — How product videos and 360-views are utilized, and the features each of these need in order for users to be able to reliably control the content.

The “Buy” Section — Design and position of elements such as the “Add to Cart” button, prices & discounts, the quantity field, “Out of Stock” items, “Save” features, etc.

Shipping, and Returns — What shipping and return info to include on the PDP and how to display it, and how to best present “Free Shipping” and “Find in Store”.

Product Variations — Designing the selection interface for color and size variations, reusing content across variations, size guides, and the interfaces required for product customizations and personalizations.

Supplement Descriptions — How users engage with and rely on supplement information and descriptions, the type of supplement-specific content needed, supplement headlines and subtitles, along with the text structure and styling that performs best.

Specifications Sheet — How users engage with spec sheets, optimizing the layout, 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.

Auxiliary Content — Presenting auxiliary content types, such as Q&A, FAQs, product manuals, social media tools, and expert generated content.

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

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

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.

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

Gifting Flow & Features — How the checkout flow and fields need to change when users gift-mark items, where and how users should be able to gift-mark items, and how gifting features need to be presented to avoid issues.

Shipping & Fulfillment — Everything related to delivery selection, including the shipping method UI, shipping descriptions and costs, order cut-off times, “Free Shipping” tiers, and how to integrate and display alternative fulfillment options, including store pickup.

Payment Flow & Methods (Incl. Third-Party) — The payment methods interface, integrating and displaying third-party payment methods, gift card redemption, charging in international currencies, coupon code form fields, and more.

Credit Card Form — Credit card field design, card validation logic and formatting, expiration date, security code, cardholder name inputs, field sequence, and card type selection.

Reservation Review — How to present reservation details for review so that users feel confident and encouraged to complete their booking.

Order Review & Confirmation — How to design the final review step and subsequent post-purchase confirmations, including the information and actions needed across these pages and the order confirmation email.

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 Labels & Microcopy — Marking optional and required fields, appropriate label positions, inline labels, providing tooltips for unconventional features, optimizing microcopy and descriptions, and more.

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.

‘My Account’ Sign-In — Account sign in, including password reset and account lockouts, “Soft” sign in, automatic sign out, and where users should be sent after signing in.

‘My Account’ Drop-Down — Placement of the “My Account” drop-down menu, account features to include, how the “My Account” drop-down should be structured and styled, personalization, and what “My Account” drop-down implementations should be avoided.

‘My Account’ Dashboard — Providing paths to all ‘My Account’ features, highlighting recent orders, limiting ads, and using icons; dashboard designs that use a sidebar or “Cards” for navigation.

‘My Account’ Stored Addresses, Cards, and Newsletters — Credit card updating flow, default addresses, editing vs. adding a new address, newsletter frequency and “unsubscribe”, confirmations, and ‘Apply’ buttons.

Mobile Basics — Content and structure of mobile site vs. desktop site, size and spacing 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.