or 02-9262-7770 
| A Usability Lesson from Amazon and Microsoft | |
By Mitchell Harper |
Published
07/11/2007
|
Web Technologies , Web Design
|
Rating:
 
|
|
|
A Usability Lesson from Amazon and MicrosoftIntroduction Because StoreSuite will provide anyone with a complete eCommerce-enabled website, usability plays a massive role in designing the application. In this article I want to touch on some usability issues that I find important when developing our software. I also want to give you an "insiders view" of how we develop our software here at Interspire. If you design websites or even software yourself, you should be able to take the ideas and principles I discuss and implement them into your own projects. What is Usability? To me, usability is when something just "feels right". You don't need to pick up a manual to learn how to use a product that has great usability. You can go to a usable website and navigate around without getting confused. Similarly, you can jump into a Ferrari and feel the wow factor. Design is a form of usability and Ferrari are the kings of "car usability". When something is usable you don't have to think how to use it. This means there is very little to no learning curve, which grows your confidence in the company that created the product. This confidence may ultimately lead to you purchasing other products from that company because you've come to expect a high level of usability from past dealings. Compare this to being a web designer. You build a visually appealing and usable website. If someone visits that site and sees your "Powered by" link at the bottom, don't you think there's a huge chance they'll remember and/or contact you when they need a website in the future? Usability breeds familiarity which leads to a positive user experience. If there were two websites that contained exactly the same information and graphics, the website that was the most usable would win more sales every time. Usability Online The difficult thing with usability is that it's subjective - you might think a horizontal menu on a web site is easy to use, while I might prefer a vertical one - so you have to aim to make something usable for the overwhelming majority of people, because no matter what you do you'll never please everyone. Before starting the design of a web site or piece of software, you should look at examples that exist in the real world. If you're about to design a Windows application then look at the usability of popular Windows applications such as Skype, MSN messenger, Outlook, MYOB, etc. Which design elements and objects make these pieces of software usable? Why? If you make a list of 10-20 things you'll have a great foundation for your own Windows application. It's similar for web sites. If a client wants you to build a complete eCommerce website from scratch, then spend a few days (yes DAYS) getting intimate with Amazon, Shopping.com, eBay, etc. Critique these sites from head to toe and come up with a list of features or strategies that you think make them usable. You can even copy a lot of usability features from sites like these, including:
Companies like Amazon have spent millions of dollars on usability testing, so doesn't it makes sense to take what's working for them and make it work for you? The best way to test if something is usable is simple. Get a few friends without design backgrounds and ask them to perform an action using your website or software. For example:
Note down their responses. As you ask more and more people to test your website or software application you should start seeing trends. Find the issues that are common amongst the most people and start working to fix them. This is how we operate as a software company with tens of thousands of customers, so it works whether you've got just a few customers or a few thousand. Planning for StoreSuite Usability is a big consideration as we're building StoreSuite. The good news for us is that we already have an established set of usability guidelines that are consistent between our products. This made creating the StoreSuite control panel easy. In terms of StoreSuite's front-end where people would see products, place orders, etc, we've started with the foundation of an existing ArticleLive template which has been tweaked. You can see it here. This might not end up as the default template when we release StoreSuite, but it will be included as a complete template anyway. I'm responsible for the overall design and usability strategy for StoreSuite, and so far we've followed the exact strategies I talked about earlier in this article and it's working great. When we design the shopping cart part of StoreSuite for example, we will look at our own shopping cart on Interspire.com because we like how it feels - it's simple and logical. We'll also look at Amazon, BestBuy.com, CDUniverse.com and probably 10-20 other eCommerce sites to see how their shoppping cart looks and works. We will take the best parts from all sites and implement them into StoreSuite. Truth be told that's how we've developed all of our applications so far - look at what's already out there and working, note down the best features, make them better and combine them with our own ideas and customer feedback to form a completed product. The phrase "why re-invent the wheel?" applies to software and web sites just like it does to everything else. If there are already numerous working implementations then why start from absolute scratch, especially in terms of usability? Conclusion Usability is the number one factor when designing anything, especially software or web sites. In most industries the product with the best design or ease of use will be the most profitable, because people don't have the time or patience to learn how to use a new product; they want something that's familiar and doesn't require a user manual to get started. |
|
Spread The Word
13 Responses to "A Usability Lesson from Amazon and Microsoft" 
Author/Admin)|
said this on 12 Jul 2007 11:06:47 AM CDT
Dear Mitchell,
We are a design firm in America and really like your products. The only issue we have is that technologically they are excellent, but from a design standpoint they are limiting. Very few designers have the knowledge to alter a PHP page. Remember the majority of designers are print designers. There are too many IT guys that think they are designers when in fact they are technicians. If you could create a method for designers to alter templates such as Articlelive sites, we would be grateful. The store site that you are developing will revolutionize our business, but please keep in mind that the supplied templates for your other products are a bit stiff. We are loyal customers and enjoy your notes on progress. If you would like, we could provide design stylings that are dynamic. Sincerely, Josh Kohn, Owner Kohn Creative [Hi Josh: Thanks for your comments. StoreSuite is actually built on the same template system as ArticleLive and all of our NX products now, so HTML and PHP are completely separate so you wont have any issues with editing the HTML code.] |
|
said this on 12 Jul 2007 2:06:30 PM CDT
Seems to me you might be trying to launch this software too quick.
I am in the process of using a shopping cart to do video adds on each individual product in the cart. Let's face it, this is the 21st century and the name of the game is video. You should build in the ability to add video taken from even web cams and converted to flash for people to talk about their products as well as the usual pictures and writing. I will also be using MIDI files to provide a music background for each item. If you don't include these features in your new software, someone will. Maybe ME! Just imagine trying to sell against such a software, especially if it was priced reasonably instead of making everyone feel like they have to bend over to buy it. So, you need to build software not only for today, but for tomorrow. Look down the road and see what is needed. We are going so far as to use professional costumes and sets with pro cameras to create real adds. Email me of you want to know how to do this. [From Mitch: Hi Wayne! Thanks for the comments. StoreSuite will use DevEdit as the content editor which already has built-in support for different video formats - you can upload videos and insert them with 2 clicks. You can also embed YouTube videos. Hope that helps :)] |
|
said this on 12 Jul 2007 2:34:30 PM CDT
For most of this article i agree with you, but in my opionion we shouldn't take the "why re-invent the wheel?" as a word of the book.
As an example i'd take microsoft word tools palette positioning: everybody use it as it is placed by default (usually two rows of tools at the top of the document), not because it is usefull or easy; just because it appears like that by default. Most of the users don't know they can be detached and placed wherever they feel better with these... so we end up with many different configurations. As many as needed for each one's uses and habits. And that's where some usability designs are flawed; designers did like microsoft or like amazon, just because they've spent millions in usability. But that is for an average microsoft or amazon user. It may not be suited for a 18 year old engineer student or for a 40 year old creative director. This is where is my point, in usability we should first think "is that the right wheel ?" if the answer is yes great, otherwise re-invent it. That's maybe why we have so many different cars around, they all have different purposes. Ferrari is neat alright, but 18 wheelers are usefull to carry goods everywhere. Anyway thanks for this interesting article :) |
|
said this on 12 Jul 2007 3:39:57 PM CDT
Nice article -- and timely. Your staff is super. We recently purchased Send Studio, but consider ourselves non-technical people. Useability is key to our workflow. We understand that the product was originally designed for software programming types, but your staff is great in helping us. Bravo!
|
|
said this on 12 Jul 2007 3:47:33 PM CDT
Cindy here . . .Back in February of 2007, my company lost the server it was sharing with horrible store software freely distributed by GNU. For several weeks we lost thousands of eCommerce income not having an online store. I grappled to find suitable eCommerce software to run on a Virtual Server. Most were very expensive and required monthly fees. None were easily customized. We settled on LiteCommerce software which I had to setup, implement, customize, and learn in a short period of time. Although it works well for us, modifying or customizing almost anything is HORRIBLE, difficul, time consuming, and many times we have to pay the software techs to change critical issues. The software and it's technicians reside in Russia and the communication can be impossible. They also seem to charge us for things we have not even been part of when software crashes. PLEASE KEEP UP THE WORK ON STORESUITE. 8) You WILL be one of very few developers to provide us users with a viable eCommerce solution! Thank you Interspire for being the BEST in the WORLD!
|
|
said this on 12 Jul 2007 3:53:19 PM CDT
Sounds great - I love your software - It seems like I buy a fair amount online both for personal and business - Just as an FYI the cart at www.vitacost.com ( I am in no way associated - I just buy vitamins:) is in my opinion hands down the best on the web - nothing else even comes close.
All the best! |
|
said this on 12 Jul 2007 4:11:36 PM CDT
The primary goal for any storefront is to not simply to sell products, but to provide information. You will truly achieve a "wow factor" with clients (and with me) if your storefront solution supports these goals by providing the ability to for the web site owner to manage all aspects of their web site, not just the products offered. It would be fantastic if StoreSuite NX would include:
- The implementation of TRUE Web2.0 attributes (SEO, RSS/XML/Atom, blogging, ect.) and not just the use of Ajax in the back-end, large text and gradients. - The ability to manage ALL web site content, not just products. A storefront system should be the backbone of the web site and web site owners shouldn't have to rely on a separate CMS or a developer to update non-product content. "Usability" is a great goal...just don't forget "value". I'm looking forward to the upcoming release - I'll be one of the first customers in line! |
|
said this on 12 Jul 2007 4:19:32 PM CDT
You do not mention accessibility, for the blind and visually impaired, for example. At least I did not see it. They have money and like to buy and read like everyone else.
|
|
said this on 12 Jul 2007 4:55:55 PM CDT
Nice email and you have some good points, I agree with you and I think sometimes we get caught up in what WE like as opposed to what the customer likes, after all they will be using it and MAY not be so IT aware as us.. good customer testing and feedback are crucial IMO, although how this fits in with the project build could be a problem I guess :)
Cheers, Darren |
|
said this on 12 Jul 2007 8:50:10 PM CDT
From what I already know about Store Suite, it's gonna be the sweetest tasting application for the e-commerce hungry webmaster. The users want an easy shop front to order and the administrators obviously want a store that is easy to update; so you've got all your bases covered.
I look forward to making kick ass templates for it. |
|
said this on 13 Jul 2007 9:05:55 AM CDT
Great article. But please give special attention to comments made by "Edward Robirds" above - these are crucial to the success of a new "shopping cart". Most shopping carts focus on products selling and fail to cater for what else have to be done by the developer (ie the person/company who setup it up). I was wondering why would you build another shopping cart when there are so many available! The answer you have partly provided in your article, but please don't forget the usability for the developer; not just the client or the visitor. Now I dare say that you want most of your current products integrated somehow into the shopping cart; SiteCenter as a front end - because every shopping cart should be an extension of a "normal" website; can you carry thru support for CiteCenter templates/CSS! What about TrackPoint or FastFind integration etc - I hope you know what I mean. One other critical element that I found lacking in shopping carts is the ability to unify "membership". A website with a shopping cart extension needs a visitor to log in with only one id and a password and to be able to access/deny pages as well as products right thru the site. Cheers. Hady - Sydney
|
|
said this on 14 Jul 2007 1:35:51 AM CDT
Great Article.. keep up the good work, i LOVE your USEABILITY DUDE!
Ali |
