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Old 12-19-2007, 10:41 AM
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Dubbya Dubbya is offline
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Default Re: Funny T-shirts website. New ecommerce - new approach

The site loads quickly enough.

In terms of usability, you've got some pretty big issues.

The following is a basic narrative of my shopping experience, followed by a quick list of the areas you most need to tweak.

The first thing that popped into my head when I loaded the site was "Where do I start?".

"Hey, look! a gallery. There should be tons of t-shirts in there." I click the link. "Nope, it's basically exactly the same stuff I find in the product pages. What's the point of a gallery here?". I clicked on a photo to see what happens. Now I see a product page with no way to buy anything. Then, "why bother with a gallery?". "That's totally pointless" I say to myself.

"Oohhh.. look! I can win a free T-shirt!" "Yeah, right! I want to know what happens when I give them my email address?" then I ask "Where's their privacy policy?", "I'm not giving them my email address so they can sell it or add me to some spammy list."

"Wanna be friends with benefits?" *snicker* "Wonder if they mean Pillow pals?" I ask. *snicker* Kinda like a "bootie call", *LOL* that's funny. I click the link. "Oh, gotcha. They're working the social marketing angle." I think to myself. "That seems kinda like a hokey way to do it, there's nothing but a bunch of graphics. How come there isn't any text telling me what this is about?", I think while looking for the "Home" link. "They got that right. Exactly where I'd expect to find it." I return to the home page.

After mousing around a bit I surmised that you're required to click on the photos to start shopping. "Fair enough." I say. "They could use some text here", I think.

I tried to add an item to the cart and received a Javascript popup telling me to select a gender and size. "Okay, gotcha. Would have been easier to use with a pull down list and checkboxes for the gender. Would have been more intuitive. Would have saved me some time." (I'm a tad miffed.)

I usually take an XXL, "Crap! Nothing in my size." I click the "About Sizes" link. "Nope, nothing here for me. Guess this is geared for teens and college kids." I think to myself. (This is where I'd have left the site.)

I select the "XL", add the item to my cart and I find that the mini cart tells me there's "1 item". "Great, but what's the dollar value?", I ask. "That might be a nice idea", I think.

This prompted the question; "Wonder if they ship to Canada.?" then, "What's their shipping policy?". Then, "Where's their shipping policy?", "What's wrong with me? Why can't I find their shipping policy?".

Now I want to speak with someone... "Where's their contact info?". I click the "Contact Us" link. "Only an email form? Why no phone number?" I think to myself. "They're running this site out of their basement. Seems like it's a part time gig and they've never done this before. Wonder how long will it take to get an answer?".

Now I'm looking for the "About Us" link... there isn't one. "That's not good" I say to myself.

I head back to the mini cart and click the "Checkout" link.

Here's what I'm seeing at 1024x768.

The subtotal, while in red, is outside the "boxed" area displaying the cart information. It's disjointed and you probably know it because you made the text red. Put the costs inside the boxed so it's easier to spot.
Glancing down, I see the "Continue Shopping" link. "Continue Shopping? I want to check out! What's going on?" I'm lost. Is there another step here? What do I do?" (I'm miffed again) Perhaps some "step-one-of-four" indicators or a down arrow labeled "continue" or "Next" would help. I spot the section labels and scroll down.

Honestly, even if I'd found a shirt in my size, I'd have left at this point.

To recap, here's why:
[list][*]You don't tell the user whom they're dealing with.[*]You don't assure them the site or their information is secure.[*]You don't tell the user how you'll use their contact information.[*]Unless they accidentally stumble into your FAQ, you don't tell the user how much shipping will cost our your shipping methods until quite late in the checkout process.[*]You don't let users contact you via their preferred method.[*]You don't have a return, warranty, refund or exchange policy (at least I couldn't find it).[*]You don't offer free shipping or price breaks for multiple items.

You've done absolutely nothing to build credibility or trust in your payment solutions and it seems that a client's personal information is not well protected.

You've not provided a product or site search feature. I don't want to scroll through products to find the item I'm interested in and you don't tell me what to do if I can't find what I'm looking for.

You really should study usability. There's a great book called "Don't Make Me Think vol. 2" by Steve Krug. It's fun and easy to read and you'll learn oodles about building an ecommerce site. Check out the site at: Advanced Common Sense Home


Anyway, that's my .02.
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