Ecommerce User Experience Vol. 03: Product Pages

Customers need adequate information about a product before they will buy it online. Effective product pages use a combination of text and images to show product information, availability, price, and a clear way to purchase the item. This report also includes guidelines for designing product customization options and presenting user reviews.

This 259-page report contains 85 design recommendations based on our usability research. Discussions and 244 screenshot illustrations supplement the findings.

Topics

• Elements of a successful product page
  • Doing the job of the salesman — without the hype
  • Allowing quick comparison
  • Providing second opinions
  • Starting the purchase process
• Navigating among products
  • Finding products
  • Suggesting related products
• Product descriptions
  • Best practices in writing and presenting product description
  • Layering product details
  • Layout considerations
  • Helping people make comparisons
  • Word choice boosts sales
  • Describing details and characteristics
  • Specification tables
  • Product restrictions
  • Reminding user of a previous purchase
• User reviews and ratings
  • Visual elements for fast comprehension
  • Criteria to ask for in reviews
  • Criteria to ask about the reviewer
  • Types of reviewers
  • Customer-submitted photos and videos
  • Question and answer sections
• Product images
  • Linking to and from images
  • Size, alternate views, detail, and composition
  • Communicating accurate information
  • Zoom tools
• Price, costs and availability
  • How and where to show price
  • Relevant information related to cost
  • Delivery and store availability information
• Specifying product options, like color and size
  • Naming the options
  • Indicating selected options
  • Color swatches
  • Multilevel lists and menus
  • Options that are not available
  • Error messages for non-selected options
• Adding items to the cart
  • Effective design, labels and placement of add to cart buttons
  • How to provide adequate feedback after adding to the cart
  • Additional purchase options
  • Subscription or recurring purchases
• Special considerations
  • Seating charts
  • Product customization

Research Method

The information in this report is based on three separate rounds of e-commerce studies, including:

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

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