Ecommerce User Experience Vol. 02: Homepages, Category Pages, Listing Pages, and Product Comparisons

The homepage and category pages help organize and prioritize a website’s offerings. Product listing pages show shoppers the collection of items for sale within a category, and present ways to filter, sort, and compare items. Customers run into problems when they can’t tell what your site sells or can’t find the products they want to buy. This report helps you present the right amount of information and organize it well.

This 222-page report presents 69 guidelines based on our usability research. Discussions and 221 screenshot illustrations supplement the findings.

Article on research findings: UX Guidelines for Ecommerce Homepages, Category Pages, and Product Listing Pages

Topics

• Best practices for homepage design
  • Create a good first impression
  • Keep customers on your site
  • Sell and build trust
  • Introducing your website as a great place to shop
  • Show what you sell
• Finding (navigating to) products
  • Classification systems for ecommerce websites
  • Facilitating direct navigation
  • Creating differentiating category names and useful groupings
  • Encouraging serendipitous exploration through category pages
• Category pages
  • Presenting options
  • Navigating through subcategories
  • Differentiating category pages from product listing pages
• Product listing pages
  • Product listing pages play an important role in the purchase process
  • Presenting product options
  • Displaying helpful product information
  • Features to support the shopping process
  • Best ways to show product offerings
  • Designing controls for sorting products
• Product comparison
  • Helping shoppers compare products easily
  • Comparison tables
  • Highlighting differences between products

Research Method

The information in these reports is based on three separate rounds of ecommerce studies, including:

• One-on-one usability testing
• Diary-based longitudinal study
• Eyetracking

Representative users tested 255 ecommerce websites. The studies took place in the United States, the United Kingdom, Denmark, and China (Hong Kong).