PRWD

Filtered navigation is widely adopted as one of the best ways to let users browse through large categories of products. It really doesn’t need to be complicated, but there are a few things that you should get right. Here are our top tips.

1. Indicate the number of products in each filter-category

(Schuh)

It’s a really simple one, but it’s surprising how often this isn’t done. Indicating next to a filter-category how many items a user can expect to get helps users to make decisions about whether a category is worth selecting. This can reduce disappointment for users who otherwise might select a category and then find fewer items than they hoped for.

2. Allow multi-select

(Monsoon)

This is nearly always the first thing that we check for when reviewing filtered navigation. We find that for some users it is vital to be able to configure filters to show products from a few important filters. We’ll take no excuses. Multi-select is a must.

3. Visual Filtering – Allow users to remove certain options from the filters

(ASOS)

Visual filtering allows user to change their filter settings from the product listing without interacting with the filters. The example above from ASOS (pretty much the only retailer we see doing this) shows that when you hover over a product, you can choose to ‘Hide this brand’ which de-selects that brand from the brand filtering. This allows users to even more quickly edit the products displayed without have to read through large lists of filter settings.

4. Give users control when entering values

(Speedo)

In recent user testing we have found that users want control over how they enter pricing. Some preferred to have a flexible slider, while others wanted to manually enter their own values. Suggested pricing bands came out worst because they offer the user least control.

5. Provide filters that matter to customers

Not so much feature or functionality, but we find that asking users which filters they would like to use can be an eye-opening experience and can reveal some user priorities that had not been previously anticipated. Adding new filters or changing the prominence of existing filters can really benefit from user feedback. It is also important to add analytics tracking to filter in order to identify which filters are most widely or commonly used.

6. Provide more information if filters are complex

(Schuh)
Sometimes the names of the filters themselves are not easy for users to understand. In the example above, Schuh have made it easy to access more information about sizing conversions.

We have seen other examples where retailers provide a link to their size guide, which is a great idea. We have also identified retailers who have filters with complex or technical options that would benefit from a quick modal pop up with explanations or clarification. Why not make it easier for users to filter accurately?

7. Maintain users filter choices

Another no-brainer, but we see too many examples of users navigating back to lister/sub-category pages only to find that their filter selections have reset. This can really frustrate users and reduces their patience with the website and ultimately the amount of time that they are likely to spend browsing.

BONUS – Introduce social proof and consumer behaviour tailored filters

(Lakeland)

Often overlooked, one of our clients that recognises that filtered navigation can be used to provide visitors with recommendations based on not just product specific attributes but different types of product categorisation. In this case visitors can choose to look at what are the customer favourites in this particular range (have we ever mentioned that social proof is one of the most persuasive techniques you can use to encourage visitors to buy). In addition they can filter out only the new products, or interestingly just the products which have video reviews.

When we conducted user research with Lakeland following the launch of their website this was one of the many recommended improvements, as without this visitors were often not realising that some products did have video demonstrations.

What do you think?

If you agree, disagree or think we’ve missed a key one, let us know in the comments below.

Let me get straight to the point – from all my 13+ years working with online retailers such as our fantastic clients, user testing is the most enlightening and powerful activity that retailers can carry out to answer a very extensive range of questions which can be crucial to how their e-commerce site performs.

Below I am sharing some of the most prevalent behavioural traits of men when shopping online. There will always be some differences and many of these have been observed with female consumers, but this list is very much up-to-date and representative of the male population.

1. Men have a low patience threshold
2. Changing conventions doesn’t go down well amongst males
3. A lack of transparency is a major issue
4. Men are typically less concerned than women about delivery & returns costs
5. Men are more likely to use filters to narrow down to specific products – hunter behaviour
6. Men are typical y quicker to make a purchase decision if the price & description meets their expectations
7. Men get concerned when they are being asked to provide un-necessary (to them at least) personal information
8. Men are more likely to pick up the phone to speak to customers services when they experience issues on the previous points

For more in-depth insights into these behaviour traits take a look at my Econsultancy article Eight Online Shopping Behaviour Traits of Men.

Useful links

• Conversion Rate Optimisation resources – a full list of best practice articles, case studies & presentation on usability, persuasion & conversion best practice
• Training course – E-commerce Usability & Persuasion Best Practice
• 67 questions usability testing can answer – view article
• User testing 101 – good, better, best approaches – view article
• 7 tips for moderating user testing – view article
• 5 tips when conducting user research – view article
• Moderated user testing – objectives, methodology, deliverables – view article
• LingsCars and the art of persuading visitors to buy – view article
• Booking.com persuasion design best practice – view article
• ASOS and their persuasive checkout experience – view article

With so many persuasive design techniques available, which are the really influential ones that you should focus attention on? That may be one of your thoughts if you started considering the full spectrum of persuasive design techniques available that you can use to persuade visitors to buy online.

This topic is what I’ll be presenting on at Conversion Conference London 2012 if you’d like to know more. Oh and use PRWD12 to get 15% off the ticket price.

To satisfy my personal desire to continually understand consumers and the decisions they make, I spend a lot (read 100’s of hours) of time either moderating or observing user testing sessions. Based on the fact that around 90% of our clients are retailers, most of these sessions are focussed on understanding buying triggers, motivators and behaviour.

In this article I’ve highlighted 5 of the most influential techniques that persuade visitors to buy online. I have to give credit to www.getmentalnotes.com for providing the clarity of explanations which I have used for each of the techniques. If you’ve hadn’t already I suggest you go and get some –

Quick tip – retailers who are having the most success with these techniques are those that combine multiple of these techniques during their online user journey. See Booking.com & ASOS as 2 exceptional examples of this in practice.

Scarcity

We infer value in something that has limited availability or is promoted as being scarce

Limited Duration

Given a choice between action and inaction, a limited time to respond increases the likelihood that people will buy

Social Proof

We tend to follow the patterns of similar people in new or familiar situations

Commitment & Consistency

Given a choice between action and inaction, a limited time to respond increases the likelihood that people will buy

Limited Choice

We’re more likely to make a choice when there are fewer options

BONUS – Delighters & Personality

We remember and respond favourably to small, un-expected pleasures

This 6th technique is currently extremely under-used amongst retailers. Not many online shopping experiences provide what I would say are un-expected pleasures through the browsing & buying journey. An example of how a retailer can do this is to provide a money off your next order or similar promotion on the order confirmation page. Based on the fact that hardly any retailers bother to do this, instead just providing the standard order details and typically not giving any reason to remember their experience, retailers that do give customers this un-expected but welcome offer make their experience more memorable.

This approach also utilises another technique, the peak-end rule.

Peak-end rule

We judge our past experiences almost entirely by their peaks, pleasant or unpleasant, and how they ended. If you would like to read about 1 site that encapsulate delighters, personality and the peak-end rule, read my article on the art of persuading visitors to buy by Lings Cars.

Useful links

Below are a number of links which you may be interested in having a look at:

• usability & persuasion resources – a full list of best practice articles, case studies & presentation on usability, persuasion & conversion best practice
• Lings Cars and the art of persuading visitors to buy – view article
• Improving conversion with best practice persuasive design from Booking.com – view article
• ASOS and their persuasive checkout experience – view article
• 8 online shopping behavioural traits of men – view article
• 9 valuable techniques to persuade visitors to buy in 2012 – view article

Since 2008 I have been delivering training courses in areas of usability, user experience, user-centered design, e-commerce best practice and persuading visitors to buy. Training courses are either delivered for Econsultancy in both public and in-house training sessions, and I also deliver training directly to PRWD clients.

Brands I have trained in 2011 and 2012

I’ve had the pleasure of training people working at brands including Argos, Mothercare, Homebase, Aviva, Vans, The North Face, Waitrose, River Island, Visit Britain, o2, Dyson, Mencap, Sage, Brother, Schuh and many more over the years, and I thought it would be worthwhile providing an overview of the e-commerce persuasion training that I deliver.

Usability & Persuasion in E-commerce Training Overview

This engaging, audience participation course provides attendees with a comprehensive understanding and appreciation of a wide variety of usability and persuasion techniques. The course presents a detailed look at how blue-chip and multi-channel retailers are using a wide range of persuasive design techniques to improve conversion, encourage visitors to spend more and deliver a more engaging and memorable online experience.

Included are a wealth of links to expert articles, case studies and tools to help retailers understand their visitors, prioritise improvement opportunities and begin implementing and testing site changes to increase key performance indicators.

Why do users abandon the shopping process?

During the early part of this training course I ask attendees “what reasons do you feel that cause users to abandon their online shopping process?”

Below is a curated list of some most common reasons that delegates provide across a number of courses I’ve delivered in 2011 and 2012:

• Slow site speed
• Poor navigation
• Ugly site design
• Poor search facility
• Lack of a clear call to action
• Lack of trust with the brand
• Clumsy form validation
• Lack of visibility of error message
• Too busy, lack of white space
• Poor product photography
• Lack of stock availability
• Not optimised for different platforms
• Lack of clear charges i.e. delivery and returns
• Lack of contact information
• Not providing a guest checkout option
• Lengthy registration forms
• Strict security proceedures in checkout
• Distrust in the site, lack of security assurances

What are the benefits for retailers when improving usability and persuasion?

Having established a solid understanding and awareness of the most common reasons why users abandon the shopping journey, my next question to attendees is “What are the benefits for retailers if they choose to improve the usability and persuasiveness of their experience?”.

Below is again a list of the most common responses provided by delegates in 2011 and 2012:

• Increase sales
• Improve repeat purchases
• Improve average order value
• Improving referrals
• Improve business reputation
• Reduce customer service calls
• Reduce returns
• Reducing costs by doing more online
• Improving conversion rates
• Improve ROI on marketing spend – this interestingly is typically missed by quite a few groups

Training course outline

Below is a summary of what delegates learn about through the course of the intensive training day.

Introduction – challenges

• What are your key challenges?
• Industry insights and statistics
• Key principles which encourage visitors to buy
• The benefits & ROI of improving usability & persuasion in e-commerce

Search, Navigation & Browsing

• How can online shopping replicate and improve the offline experience
• How can the search experience deliver an intuitive, engaging experience
• How to present persuasive triggers through the browsing journey

Product Page

• How to keep visitors in browsing and buying mode
• What are the most influential and persuasive elements to include on your product page
• How to focus visitors attention on what is most important for them and you
• How to encourage visitors to buy more than they intended to

Persuasion

• Overview of designing for persuasion, emotion and trust
• Understanding the most influential persuasive techniques through the online journey
• Learn ways to emotionalise your proposition and empathise with visitors
• Understand the importance of trust and ways to build and maintain it through the online journey

Shopping Bag

• What is the objective of the shopping bag?
• How to remove friction and encourage checkout
• Introduce persuasive techniques to nudge visitors towards checkout
• Advanced techniques which provide a more intuitive experience

Checkout

• Understand the most common and damaging causes of checkout abandonment
• Why to enclose checkout and how best to deliver this
• How to encourage more 1st time customers to become loyal account customers
• Why checkout form usability is crucial to the success of your site
• Why testing & optimisation are the next big thing

What do delegates say about the training course?

Kathryn Charles-Wilson, Web Content Executive at Anchor Trust

I attended Paul’s Econsultancy training course last week and found it not only thoroughly interesting but packed full of real-life practical tips that the whole group could instantly benefit from. Paul’s presentation style is engaging and inclusive, he covered a wealth of topics in depth and encouraged discussion at every stage of the day to ensure we could relate the learning’s back to our own websites and user journeys. Paul clearly has extensive knowledge of all aspects of user-centered design and is really passionate about user experience. I would highly recommend his course.

Amy Weaverm Business Analyst at Javelin Group

Paul is a knowledgeable and enthusiastic e-commerce professional who clearly enjoys sharing his experience via his incredibly useful training courses. Paul has a great way of sharing lots of information in an easy to absorb way and is very inclusive and down to earth, encouraging lots of interaction. I think anyone who attends one of his courses will come away feeling they’ve had a very worthwhile day and with lots of ideas to develop.
Paul is a knowledgeable and enthusiastic e-commerce professional who clearly enjoys sharing his experience via his incredibly useful training courses. Paul has a great way of sharing lots of information in an easy to absorb way and is very inclusive and down to earth, encouraging lots of interaction. I think anyone who attends one of his courses will come away feeling they’ve had a very worthwhile day and with lots of ideas to develop.

Nadim Othman, Director Of European Creative Services at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe

Really appreciated today’s course on e-Commerce run by Paul. Conducted with a great felexibility and fluidity the course was well structured and provided a format that in addition to giving great insight into best practice and principles also acted as a very insightful and completely relevant forum for sharing of experiences. I would thoroughly recommend this course and commend Paul on bringing the learnings to life in such a friendly and well thought out way. Thanks Paul.

Kari Peters, Founder and Director at Factor-e

Paul has the useful ability to personalize his training sessions into practical workshops. Instead of walking out with a notebook full of impractical theory, you walk out equipped with a list of practical plans to apply to your own website. I would attend Paul’s training sessions again, as well as send my staff to keep up-to-date.

Marie Page, Co-Founder & Director at Musicademy

I attended one of Paul’s training days at Econsultancy. Having run an e-commerce company for several years I had already implemented a lot of good practice to our store. However, following the training I made a series of changes to the store, in particular presenting products in “tab” settings and improving the checkout process. Paul was really helpful in recommending changes on a tailored basis to the store and followed up with me after the training – really impressive. The site looks a lot better as a result. Basket abandonment is reduced, and sales are up. There is always more you can do to improve your website, and it was great to access Paul’s tried and tested principles.

Sider Genoveva, PR& Events Manager at Mediafax Group

We were honored to have Paul Rouke as trainer for a Usability workshop we have organized at SEM Days 2012. He is an outstanding professional, with a very good knowledge of e-commerce usability, persuasion and conversion. Paul insights are valuable and his message is essential to those who want make money from online business. The feedback was extremely positive and many participants congratulate us on bringing such a professional for this workshop. Paul is one of the most approachable and collaborative professionals I have ever met. He really took the time to make sure people got what they needed for a positive learning experience”

Further training details

If you are interested in learning what brands like Argos, Mothercare, Homebase, Waitrose, River Island, Visit Britain, o2, Dyson and Mencap have over the last few years, below is how you can come along to one of the training courses:

Option 1 – In-house training for 8-12 people
Call me in the office on 0161 228 0585 or email me at paulrouke at prwd.co.uk.

Option 2 – Public training with Econsultancy
Visit the e-commerce persuasion training page on Econsultancy to see upcoming dates and register with them.

At PRWD, much of our time is spent with the consumers and prospects of our retail clients, such as AllSaints, Lakeland, Monsoon Accessorize, Molton Brown, Stella McCartney and Speedo. In particular our time is spent 1-1 with these consumers, conducting in-depth research sessions to understand their expectations, motivational factors, primary influencers to purchase and their reaction to different elements of our clients propostion during the online customer journey.

Having just completed our latest consumer research sessions, in my latest article on Econsultancy I have provided a comprehensive list of the some of the most influential persuasive techniques that are working for our retail clients and others in 2012.

Below is the list of 9 for quick reference. For a full breakdown and some valuable quick tips for each of these points, take a look at the full article – Nine valuable techniques for persuading visitors to buy in 2012.

1. Having a FREE delivery proposition
2. Provide a USP bar in your site-wide header
3. Quick access to both new in and sale items from the primary navigation
4. Having a view all link with a variety of useful features
5. Encourage and use customer ratings and reviews
6. Provide multiple photos showing products in different use cases
7. Make your payment options transparent on the shopping basket
8. Provide visible security assurances and trustworthy logos during checkout
9. Enclose your checkout to focus visitors attention and maintain buying momentum, and provide easy access to customer service details
10. BONUS – encourage account creation at the end, not at the start

More insights and best practice on e-commerce persuasion

Below are a range of links you may find usable on the subject of e-commerce persuasion:

• Booking.com: improving conversion with best practice persuasive design – view article
• Persuasive checkout best practice from ASOS – view article
• Shopping basket best practice from ASOS – view article
• Lings Cars and the art of persuading visitors to buy – view article

A few months ago I received an email out of no-where from Genoveva Stanitchi, Events Manager at 2Parale. Genoveva was planning a two day conference in Romania for 2Parale, and I was invited to be one of the international speakers delivering workshops to delegates.

Not knowing anything about 2Parale, and wondering whether my memories of Hostel 2 could become a reality if I take up this opportunity, my concerns were soon dismissed when it became clear that 2Parale are the largest affiliate network in Romania. They also had Rand Fishkin, CEO & Co-Founder of SEOMoz, lined up amongst others, so I was sure going to be in good company.

With the 2 day conference SEMDays having a strapline of ‘All about SEO, PPC & Social Media’, I was privileged to have been identified as the suitable international trainer to deliver a workshop on e-commerce usability, persuasion and conversion – topics which no other speakers would be talking about in any depth. I must say I was relishing delivering the training course, especially knowing that I would be bringing a different flavour of drink to this Romanian party.

But will Romanians be as introverted as Estonians…

This was my next area of consideration. In October 2011 I was invited to deliver a one day training course to marketers in Estonian for Best Marketing, on a similar subject of e-commerce usability, persuasion and conversion best practice. The lack of feedback and perceived engagement from the audience that day was tough going to say the least. I had to seek re-assurance from the event organiser during lunch that the audience could understand my northern accent and that they had turned up to the right training course.

I was that intent on getting delegates to engage and participate that during the afternoon, I really put the wind up them. At 2.30 I said “I have seen that many of you have been making notes during the course of the training. What I will do at 3.30 is ask each of you to share amongst us all the top 2-3 things that you have learnt so far today.” Of course I was keeping my fingers crossed that they hadn’t been drawing cartoons or making a list of what they need to buy on their way home from the supermarket.

The look on their faces was a picture. I can imagine what they were thinking, “who is this evil man, I didn’t sign up for this ordeal”.

At 3pm I really turned the screw by reminding them that in 30 minutes I’ll be asking each of them to share their key learning’s. I did expect some walk-outs but to my surprise they all stayed on.

At 3.30 and with over 40 people in the room, it wasn’t realistic to give everyone time to share their thoughts, so I said that I won’t be asking everyone for their feedback. On the one hand I could feel the sigh of relief, although this then changed to a feeling of ‘will he won’t he’ as the delegates did their best to not make eye contact or appear keen to share their views.

To my complete surprise, after a lady near the front tentatively put her hand up and started sharing her key learnings, this suddenly injected confidence amongst others in the audience. Over the next 10 minutes I was relieved that delegates had been learning plenty, and I was particularly satisfied when a guy at the back of the room, who had looked the most dis-interested through the day, put his hand up and spent the next 5 minutes sharing this big list of things he had learnt.

They say appearances can be deceptive, and this sure was the case during that day.

So how could I get Romanians warmed up and participating?

So my challenge at SEMDays was to get the audience participating from the start – I couldn’t go through another training session wondering whether delegates could understand me or had come in to the wrong workshop. I turned to Twitter to ask my followers if they had any recommendations, and thankfully there was one in particular…

This worked perfectly – to get all 60+ delegates participating I asked “hands up who has ever bought online?”.

Included in my training slides early on were photos and quotes from Pulp Fiction. I was prepared to skip these slides if most of the delegates hadn’t seen this film, but I didn’t. I got the impression this is one very popular film amongst Romanians (for what its worth I love it. “Bring out the gimp” = priceless).

For audience participation, Romanians trump Estonians

What followed was a really enjoyable, interactive workshop. In terms of their willingness to take part, ask questions and respond to questions I was asking of them, Romanians are certainly more confident and open that Estonians.

A dogs got personality, personality goes a long way

Part of my workshop looked at personality and how brands can introduce personality and emphathise more effectively with their target audience. The workshop also used content from my e-commerce usability, persuasion and conversion best practice training course which I deliver for PRWD clients and for Econsultancy.

I recently delivered a presentation for Econsultancy at their Digital Shorts session in Manchester, and below are my slides which feature some of this content.

Five presentation tips for presenting in a foreign country

Based on my experiences below are 5 tips if you are presenting in a foreign country, particularly Estonia and Romania.

• Ask for a show of hands at the beginning, ideally with a question which means most, if not all, people will put their hand up
• Reference iconic UK or US films which participants will more than likely have watched
• Unless people are actually leaving during your presentation, don’t worry that they don’t appear to be engaged – chances are they are very engaged but they don’t show this
• Encourage participants to discuss some of the key issues in their country that relate to what you are presenting on – this can lead to quite heated debate amongst the audience which can be great fun
• Share links to useful content, ideally using short links (I use the excellent Bit.ly) – it seems like people love to have things to do after the training
• Don’t do death by powerpoint, or more precisely death by bullet points – this of course applies to UK audiences too
• .. and a bonus tip – don’t pass up the opportunity to go out drinking with the event organisers. On saying this, taking part in drinking games at 12.30am with a 5am taxi to the airport was great at the time but not such a great idea on the flight back to Manchester

These are my slides from my talk at Norther User Experience in Manchester on 6th February 2012. They include extensive notes which can be seen if you view the presentation slides on Slideshare.

I must say this was one of my most enjoyable presentations I have delivered, and if you would like to know more about the group please visit the Northern User Experience website.

Below are my slides from my presentation at FutureCommerce 2011, a full day conference run by How-do in Manchester. I must say it was probably the most engaging, comprehensive and insightful conference I have taken part in, and it was a real pleasure to speak alongside IBM, Microsoft and Apple.

In summary the 8 essential usability and conversion optimisation tips featured in this presentation are as follows. Included in this presentation are a number of questions which people who work on websites can ask themselves about their own site.

1. Provide transparency
2. Answer visitor questions
3. Remove barriers to entry
4. Focus the user on what you want them to do
5. Listen to what your customers and prospects have to say
6. Stick to best practice in most cases
7. Use advanced traffic and visitor segmentation
8. Aim to embed a testing & optimisation culture within the business

View all my usability & conversion optimisation articles, best practice, case studies & presentations

’8 Essential Usability & Conversion Optimisation Tips’

Following on from my article I published on Econsultancy ‘Shopping Basket Best Practice from ASOS’ (link under the slides), I was delighted to be asked to be the first person to present at the very first Conversion Thursday Manchester on Thursday 24th February 2011.

The meet-up was superb with some of the great and the good of the analytics and conversion industry attending. Below are my presentation slides.

Useful Links

• Shopping basket best practice from ASOS
• ASOS
• over 15 articles on e-commerce usability best practice
• Conversion Thursday Manchester (and the event Twitter tag #CTMan)
• E-commerce user testing service
• E-commerce usability & best practice training

Due to the 1st March training course for Econsultancy being over-booked, a new date has been added for 3rd May 2011. Details and how to book online are below.

• Course Title: E-commerce Usability & Best Practice
• New Date: 3rd May 2011
• Time: 9.30am – 4.30pm
• Location: Etc Venues, Moorgate, London, United Kingdom
• Cost: £525 + vat
• Course Details on the Econsultancy website: E-commerce Usability and Best Practice training
• Book Online at Econsultancy
• Twitter Hashtag: #UCDtraining