Empower Your E-Commerce UX and Decisions with 42,000+ Hours of UX Research

The primary objectives of a site’s homepage, the opportunities it can provide to both new and repeat users, the homepage structure & design, carousels, personalization, and promotions.

The structural foundation of a site’s product categories, including information architecture, catalog breadth, and category naming.

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

How Intermediary Category Pages can guide users toward better-defined categories and products using inspirational paths, featured products, and curated content.

How general site-wide elements should be designed and positioned, including considerations on newsletter dialogs, ad positioning, footer, and return policy links.

The prerequisites for a great search experience: understand the 12 different types of search queries that users typically submit on e-commerce sites, which your site’s search engine needs to support.

Search form design and function, both pre- and post-search, with usability considerations on the design and behavior of the search field itself, query persistence, search scope selection, etc.

How the autocomplete (also known as ‘predictive search’) should be designed, the types of suggestions it should make (products vs queries), keyboard input behavior, and more.

How to create a seamless query integration process, including how to guide users toward better paths through methods such as suggesting new queries, scopes, and ‘No results’ pages.

Layout and design of search results and how to implement filtering, dynamic list layouts, search snippets, loading more results, faceted search filters, value truncation, filter naming, dynamic sorting, and more.

How to create a list layout that bolsters product browsing experiences, with guidelines on the design and features of the overall product list layout, including grid and list layouts.

How to load items in a product list, including guidelines on how new items should be loaded, how many items should be displayed by default, how to approach novel navigation methods, and more.

Information to include in List Items, formatting and displaying information, displaying product variations as one or multiple List Items, what product thumbnails to display, and more.

Presenting and arranging information in List Items, including showcasing product features, List Item hover effects, and more.

How sites can personalize List Items to suit each unique user by inferring user interests through filtering and sorting observations, context-aware product thumbnails, and contextual compatibility notices.

Which filtering types users need to narrow down product lists, incl. thematic filters, considerations for accessory products, user-defined ranges for all numeric filtering values, and more.

Common pitfalls and optimizations such as avoiding filter attributes as category scopes, explaining industry-specific filters, and allowing users to combine multiple filter values of the same filter type.

Layout and interface styling and the discoverability of filters, incl. how to visually nest sidebar categories, when to truncate filters, and considering a horizontal unified sorting and filtering tool.

How to provide innovative and forward-thinking product selection with guidelines on the default sort type, avoiding most alphabetical sorting, sorting interface and scope, as well as the sort types needed.

When a comparison tool is appropriate and how both its selection process and comparison page should be designed, when to have a comparison feature, and how to design the compare link and comparison view.

The 4 predominant Product Details Page layouts used in e-commerce: ‘Horizontal Tabs’, ‘Sticky TOCs’, ‘Collapsed Sections’, ‘One Long Page’, how they each perform, and which layout to generally avoid.

How users rely on images on the product page, the 7 different product image types users generally need, the amount of images needed, and how large sites can approach some of the image sourcing.

How to design a high-performing imagery gallery that serves as the perfect container for the product images, incl. image navigation, how to zoom images, overlays, default image size, etc.

‘Rich visuals’ like product video and 360-views, how users utilize it, and the features each of these need in order for users to be able to reliably control the content.

The design and position of elements such as the ‘Add to Cart’ button, prices & discounts, the quantity field, ‘Out of Stock’, ‘Save to List’, etc.

The best-performing designs for displaying shipping and return info at the product page, the amount of info required, along with how to best present “Free Shipping”, handle gifting, and “Find in Store” features.

The selection interface for color and size variations, reusing content across variations, size guides, along with the interfaces required for both product customizations and personalizations.

How users engage with and rely on product information and descriptions, the type of content needed, product headlines sub-titles, along with both the text structure and styling that performs the best.

How users engage with spec sheets, and how both the spec sheet layout, spec sheet features, and post-processing of vendor data are critical for making users less prone to users misread the specs.

The user review submission form, review filtering, sorting & navigation, rating distribution summaries, and more.

A variety of auxiliary content types found on e-commerce product pages, such as Q&A, FAQs, product manuals, social media tools, and expert-generated content.

Cross-sells and cross-navigation and users’ overall success at locating their desired products, incl. cross-sell design, placement, and logic, and cross-navigation elements such as ‘Recently Viewed’, parent links, etc.

The UX benefits and inherent usability pitfalls of a multistep checkout flow, accordion checkouts, and one-step checkouts.

The shopping cart page, incl. cart design, quantity and save features, the page response when users add products to the cart on the product page (drop-down cart, etc.).

Checkout flows for signed in users, users creating an account, or checking out as a guest, incl. account-selection designs and communication,‘Delayed Account Creation’, social media accounts, password rules.

How to handle the form fields for all personal user data, incl. privacy concerns, shipping addresses, billing addresses, international addresses, phone fields, address auto-detection techniques, etc.

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 the actual gifting features needs to be presented to avoid issues.

Shipping and store pickup, incl. the shipping method UI, shipping descriptions, order cut-off times, ‘Free Shipping’ tiers, how omni-channel sites best integrate ‘Store Pickup’ and ‘Store Availability’, and more.

The payment methods interface, how to integrate and display an array of different third-party payment methods, the gift card redemption flow, and more.

How to cause as few abandonments as possible, incl. the credit card field design, card validation logic and formatting, expiration date, security code, and cardholder name inputs, field sequence, card icons, and card type selection.

How to properly design the final ‘Review’ step before a user completes an order, including ‘Place Order’ button placement, and necessary review data, along with the editing flow for those users who need to change data.

The implementation of post-purchase confirmations, incl. the information and actions needed on the order confirmation page and order confirmation email.

How to design and position the cart link in the site wide header and primary button throughout the checkout, minimizing form intimidation, avoiding multi-column layouts, using ‘Enclosed Checkout’ designs, etc.

How to implement load indicators, when to provide feedback on user actions, where to avoid ‘Apply’ buttons, embedding content from third-parties, and much more on interactive components.

How to thoughtfully incorporate cross-sells into a checkout flow, including the use of active vs. passive cross-selling, adapting cross-sells to user context, and pitfalls of specific placements and wording.

Error recovery and address validation experiences, incl. how to improve users’ ability to locate, understand, and resolve errors, and more.

How to mark optional and required fields, appropriate label positions, inline labels, optimizing microcopy and descriptions, and marking of optional and required fields.

The proper selection and assembly of form elements, inputs, and selections, incl. choosing the right type of interface, field masking and character restrictions, and more.

Intelligent form features such as making inferred selections, prefilling form fields, browser auto-fills, and personalization of the checkout flow — smart form field features that improve checkout UX substantially.

Placing the “Account” drop-down menu, account features to include, how the “Account” drop-down should be structured and styled, personalization, and what “Account” drop-down implementations should be avoided.

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

Account sign in, including password reset and account lockouts, “Soft” sign in, automatic sign out, sign in when accessing order tracking from an order status email, and where users should be sent after sign in.

Credit card updating, default addresses, editing vs. adding a new address, newsletter frequency and ‘unsubscribe’, confirmations, and ‘Apply’ buttons.

Order list item design, order tracking pages, third-party order tracking, how users get to order tracking, guest order tracking, order status emails, order cancellation, order receipts, and order status filters.

Initiating, moving through, and finalizing a return online; returns costs, shipping methods, in-store returns, shipping labels, and packaging returns.

How to layout and structure information and navigation, describe complex flows or features, and finding and understanding self-service features, and the courtesy navigation.

The mobile homepage, main navigation, and search, incl. how to design the main mobile navigation, creating easily scannable mobile homepage and category pages, mobile ‘no results’ pages, etc.

Creating a balanced product list experience within the confines of a mobile screen, incl. how to design hit areas, information to include in list items, ‘Load More’ buttons, and making product list items nonselectable.

Filtering and sorting product lists, incl. positioning and styling ‘Sort by’ and ‘Filter’ list features, sorting options to always offer, auto-submitting filters, and why not to use drop-downs for filtering options.

Mobile product page layouts, incl. balancing users’ lack of screen real estate with the content-rich product page, when and how to collapse content, user reviews, primary buttons at the product page, and more.

Secondary product information and specs, making product descriptions bite-sized and scannable, providing detailed views of the product, honoring image gestures, and more.

Making the cart function as a ‘save’ feature, never showing fees and extras below the order total, always offering a ‘Guest Checkout’, how to design and sequence account selection options, and more.

Showing cost and speed of all shipping methods, providing an ‘edit’ option whenever displaying user inputs, having ‘Billing Address’ = ‘Shipping Address’ as default, and more.

Allowing both GPS detection and manual typing of location, clearing autocomplete upon refocus, never using inline labels, and providing formatting examples for all inputs with multiple formats.

Disabling auto-correct where the dictionary is weak, showing appropriate keyboard layouts, honoring the ‘Next’ and ‘Previous’ button behavior, and consistently invoking keyboard layouts.

Design, coding, and wording of messages, incl. providing an ‘edit’ option when displaying user input, giving helpful error messages, using front-end validation, and more.

Technical errors and performance issues, incl. making pages and assets load fast, showing load indicators when actions are slow, avoiding blank error pages, and more.

The fundamentals of mobile e-commerce, incl. click behavior and expectations, contextually aware sites, guiding the user, footer and help pages, and clickability and readability.

Implications and fundamental differences between desktop and mobile websites, incl. content differences across platforms, rewarding clicks with adequate content, when to deviate from native form elements, and more.

101 guidelines that our usability testing reveals to have both a high UX impact on sites selling Apparel products, while at the same time being ‘missed opportunities’ and often overlooked within this industry.

124 guidelines that our usability testing reveals to have both a high UX impact on Mass Merchant sites, while at the same time being ‘missed opportunities’ and often overlooked within this industry.

122 guidelines that our usability testing reveals to have both a high UX impact on sites selling Electronics & Office products, while at the same time being ‘missed opportunities’ and often overlooked within this industry.

83 guidelines that our usability testing reveals to have both a great UX impact on sites selling Home & Hardware products, while at the same time being ‘missed opportunities’ and often overlooked within this industry.

74 guidelines that our usability testing reveals to have both a high UX impact on sites selling Houseware & Furnishing products, while at the same time being ‘missed opportunities’ and often overlooked in the industry.

53 guidelines that our usability testing reveals to have both a high UX impact on sites selling Health & Beauty products, while at the same time being ‘missed opportunities’ and often overlooked within this industry.

66 guidelines that our usability testing reveals to have both a high UX impact on sites selling Sports, Toys, & Hobby products, while at the same time being ‘missed opportunities’ and often overlooked within this industry.

154 guidelines that our usability testing reveals to have both a high UX impact on sites selling Business-to-Business, while at the same time being ‘missed opportunities’ and often overlooked for B2B e-commerce sites.