Comments on: A Usability Rant

By: This Week In SEO - 8/10/07 - TheVanBlog

This Week In SEO - 8/10/07 - TheVanBlog — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 00:24:06 +0000

[...] A Usability Rant [...]

By: DazzlinDonna

DazzlinDonna — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 21:13:07 +0000

Steve, hopefully, you can control that by doing a quick check. If they entered P.O. or PO or POB, etc. give them a popup warning. Still allow them to enter that just in case the name of their street is POB St. or whatever, but a popup warning after they fill that field would probably eliminate 99.9% of those. At least, as a site owner, you can control some of these issues. As the buyer, there’s nothing I can do.

By: Steve

Steve — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 21:02:11 +0000

Hi Donna,
On my site, right before the part where you put in your shipping address I have in italicized letters that I use UPS to ship and please put in your home address. Yet I still get people using their PO box!?

My other pet peave when ordering online is when there is more than 2 pages to the checkout process. I hate that!
Which is why I collect all of my pertinent info on one page. Quick and easy.

Thanks for the rant.

By: eCopt

eCopt — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 19:00:56 +0000

Couldn’t agree with you more Donna. Shipments to multiple addresses using multiple shipping options are a pain to deal with whether you are a customer or a merchant.

The comment box is the easiest and most straight forward in my opinion. Shoppers should leave special instructions for shipments that want handled differently or left in a special place upon delivery.

I have seen a lot of sites that let you edit your order, cart or shipping and address, that seems to work too, since customers can go back and modify any aspect of the checkout or go back and add comments f they forget initially.

Another good solution would be to show what provider is going to be used before the shipping address is entered. So merchants may know they can only ship certain items via certain providers, and include that once the item is added to a customers cart. Or show it one step before the shipping info is added. The cart could use the billing address by default and give the customer a chance to edit their shipping address once they see the method of delivery.

Many sites already use some of these strategies, it’s just to bad they don’t seem to be the same ones you shop at. My recommendation is that you forward this post to the top ten sites you shop at and see if they listen. You could even send them suggestions on how they can improve customer usability. It may be worth it if you keep losing packages!