Northern Tool UX Case Study
This is a case study of Northern Tool’s e-commerce user experience (UX) performance. It’s based on an exhaustive performance review of 272 design elements. 250 other sites have also been benchmarked for a complete picture of the e-commerce UX landscape.
Northern Tool’s overall e-commerce UX performance is mediocre. Some of Northern Tool’s biggest UX issues are caused by broken On-Site Search, poor Product Lists & Filtering, and poor Site-Wide Design & Interaction performances.
First benchmarked in April 2012, and reviewed 26 times since then, most recently in January 2024.
Desktop Web
272 Guidelines · Performance:
Homepage & Category Navigation
21 Guidelines · Performance:
On-Site Search
30 Guidelines · Performance:
Product Lists & Filtering
51 Guidelines · Performance:
Product Page
49 Guidelines · Performance:
Cart & Checkout
87 Guidelines · Performance:
Accounts & Self-Service
22 Guidelines · Performance:
Site-Wide Design & Interaction
12 Guidelines · Performance:
Mobile Web
276 Guidelines · Performance:
Mobile Homepage & Category Navigation
22 Guidelines · Performance:
Mobile On-Site Search
29 Guidelines · Performance:
Mobile Product Lists & Filtering
50 Guidelines · Performance:
Mobile Product Page
49 Guidelines · Performance:
Mobile Cart & Checkout
89 Guidelines · Performance:
Mobile Accounts & Self-Service
18 Guidelines · Performance:
Mobile Site-Wide Design & Interaction
19 Guidelines · Performance:
To learn how we calculate our performance scores and read up on our evaluation criteria and scoring algorithm head over to our Methodology page.
The scatterplot you see above is the free version we make public to all our users. If you wish to dive deeper and learn about each guideline and even review your own site you’ll need to get premium access.
Northern Tool’s Desktop Web E-Commerce Design
33 pages of Northern Tool’s e-commerce site, marked up with 255 best practice examples:
Northern Tool’s Mobile Web E-Commerce Design
30 pages of Northern Tool’s e-commerce site, marked up with 223 best practice examples:
Explore Other Research Content
Every week, we publish a new article on how to build “state of the art” e-commerce experiences — here’s 5 popular ones:
Drop-Down Usability: When You Should (and Shouldn’t) Use Them
Format the “Expiration Date” Fields Exactly the Same as the Physical Credit Card (72% Don’t)
PDP UX: Core Product Content Is Overlooked in ‘Horizontal Tabs’ Layouts (Yet 28% of Sites Have This Layout)
Form Field Usability: Avoid Extensive Multicolumn Layouts (16% Make This Form Usability Mistake)
Form Usability: Getting ‘Address Line 2’ Right
See all 402 articles in the full public archive.