5 scary facts & stats about UX & Ecommerce I learned those past weeks

Only 3% of the websites are judged satisfying in term of usability from a user point of view…

You may have heard of the results from Forrester Website usability report March 2012, well it’s a little depressing to know that so few users are satisfied when browsing a website. Despite the fact that it’s common mistakes since 10 years that we, web marketers, developers, webmaster… do, it can also be encouraging to know that the edge of improvement is huge. I would recommend more than anything the book I just finish and to make it short both articles I wrote about it “Few simple and concrete web usability principles“. If there is just one thing I would remind, it will be “If your grandmother can use it, then any expert/targeted audience you have will be able to use it…”

80% of customers abandon a mobile site if they have a bad user experience.

Well that sounds quite normal! As we know that mobile browser user are supposed to be more demanding, we must find a way to meet their expectations so which way will be the better : mobile first? responsive design? mobile app, mobile-tablet-any device site?… well, I think the discussion is still going on. You may know my position on the subject, I tend to believe that the responsive design although being hard-work, is the better we can offer for user experience. Anyway, as I was saying : the discussion is still on the flow: check the latest hot topic “Designers respond to Nielsen on mobile” since Jakob Nielsen last alertbox

At least 59% of potential web shoppers abandon their shopping cart

For sure, the checkout abandon rate improvement is on of the common most and revenue-driven subject, we webmarketers work on. Aside from the subjects, I went through with others articles: “How-to track your checkout conversion rate“ or “Best practices to decrease abandon rate“, here are some new tips I found from the E-commerce Usability Survey study by Baymard Institute 2011. This 148 pages report is really complete but I’ll not be able nor allowed to give away all the tips here. Let me just sum up the 6 categories that the report go through to help us enhance the checkout process:

Data input (any kind of data input the customer must enter during checkout): this part is mostly about form usability. As ressources, I’ll advise Luke Wroblewski reading: either his book Web Form Design: Filling in the Blanks (not so free) or his writings 100% FREE
Copywriting : the use and wording of text throughout the checkout process. I would briefly say: be clear and concise & careful to your call-to-action
Layout: the visual layout of the checkout pages. This part is clearly about design and usability: “be consistent and clear in you visual hierarchy, the more important the more proeminent and keep the visual noise down”
Navigation: the implementation of process steps, buttons, and navigational links.
Flow: the flow between the individual process steps. This part give some guidelines to avoid customer confusion during the process : “having steps within steps confuses and intimidates
customers as it breaks with their mental model of a linear checkout”.
Focus: the site’s own business benefits vs. the customer’s shopping experience. This one is a “How-to make you web user life easy|happy OR Stop annoying your web users with your point of view or your needs.”

Access the whole survey here.

70% of shoppers use their smartphone while shopping in the store

Source: The Mobile Movement Study, Google/Ipsos OTX MediaCT , Apr 2011
This fact is not really scary but for cross channel business it’s a significant data. It’s a significant info to know that in-store people rely both on your sales person and customers online reviews to make a decision! It’s useful to know that while browsing to get information people could find any information (promotion, bad reviews…) and leave your store… This make an echo to “WINNING THE ZERO MOMENT OF TRUTH”. The way we shop is definitely changing : multiple device, multiple channel, multiple source of informations…

A 1 second delay in page response can result in a 7% reduction in conversions.

This one is not new but really a crazy fact, check here a great infography to understand how significant it can be“How Loading Time Affects Your Bottom Line“. And if you do not use it already, install Page Speed (Firebug extension) or test your website with the Google Tool : Page Speed & finally track it continuously in Google Webmaster Tools as Page Speed beign a user experience matter but also a SEO matter.

I know this sound terribly depressing… NO, it’s not! It’s challenging! Sorry I’m an eternal optimistic…

I hope the few links I shared will help if you get to work on of this challenge and if not you may start.