Checkout processes are an important aspect of e-commerce websites. The performance of these checkout processes relates directly to the revenues for such websites. The better they perform, the more visitors will manage to complete the checkout from start till end. Or more concretely: from clicking Add to cart to having ordered the product. The percentage of people reaching the goal, relative to the number of people that started the checkout, is called the checkout conversion percentage. Enhancing usability can greatly increase this percentage, as well as user satisfaction and subsequently brand loyalty.
The goal of this master thesis project is to determine interface and interaction design patterns that can enhance the usability of e-commerce checkouts. Such interface and interaction design patterns are similar to software design patterns, although the focus is different. Software patterns describe solutions for repeating design challenges in a given context. The same goes for these interface and interaction design patterns. These patterns are like building blocks for user experiences. They deal with aspects such as, but not limited to, interaction structures (e.g. sections on one page versus spread across different pages), element positioning and text style.
In order to achieve this goal, a number of interesting patterns are gathered from literature and practice. Following this, two prototypes are designed and developed, allowing these patterns to be evaluated. These evaluations take place in the form of user studies where participants are asked to complete a number of tasks using both prototypes. Feedback is obtained both in the form of user comments, using the think aloud protocol, as well as by means of observations. To allow this feedback to be processed, all evaluation sessions are recorded on video.
The results from these user studies allow attaining the goal of determining which patterns enhance usability. They allow the formulation of a list with patterns and their positive and negative effects on usability for e-commerce checkouts, thereby answering the research question.
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Usability is very important for e-commerce sites, as there is a strong relation between usability and sales revenues. Furthermore, usability guidelines can provide an effective method for increasing a site's usability. Given these facts, it is valuable to have a good set of usability guidelines that can assist in designing e-commerce sites. This research attempts to create such a list, based on a literature research and validated by testing it against three major Dutch and international e-commerce websites (bol.com, wehkamp.nl and amazon.com). An important aspect of e-commerce sites is the checkout process, which is the part of e-commerce sites that this research focuses on. Ultimately, the research has resulted in a structured checklist of 292 checkout usability guidelines. |
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