Ecommerce Replatforming: The Importance of UX Design and the Mistakes You Need to Avoid

UX Design is critical when Ecommerce replatforming — find out what the most common UX Mistakes are and how to avoid them.

Transferring a site to another platform (Ecommerce replatforming) is pretty hard work. During this process, there are quite a few difficulties and nuances that need attention. There are literally hundreds of thins that could go wrong and many impact the user experience (UX) of the e-commerce website.

 

Imagine that almost 70% of shoppers like to add the products to their carts and then just drop them with the feeling that the purchase is already made.

This average figure was calculated by the Baymard Institute on the basis of 34 studies on abandoned сarts on e-commerce sites. You have to be able to provide your buyers with the best UX possible and in this post I’m going to cover the essential points to watch for when Ecommerce replatforming.

What role does user experience play in the migration of your site when Ecommerce replatforming?

UX is a set of impressions that the user receives not only during but after the interaction with the product (site, application, etc.). The key target of UX design is to help users reach their goals as quickly as possible. Due to the statistical material prepared by the UK Web Host Review:

• The first impression on the consumer is made for 10 seconds on average.

• The opinion about the design is formed in 0.05 seconds after the main page is opened.

• 86% of users want to get extended information about products, and this opportunity should be provided to them via well-thought UX.

Migrating to a new Ecommerce platform can impact ALL of these.

The Popular Pain Points in UX

The demand for UX design is growing, but this field is still not fully developed. As a result, there are no iron standards and the workflow varies from company to company, and from designer to designer.

 

Despite the evidence that shows a good UX as a conversion accelerator, many teams still approach UX as a last resort. But this is the first and most serious mistake!

1. Ignoring the Needs of the Target Audience

This is a very important point, as UX design is targeted specifically at helping your target audience.

Ideally, the needs, vision and previous experience of the target audience should be considered at the design and development stage of the site. It is necessary to understand what exactly the user wants, why the user visits the site and why they leave it. Developing a web product “according to your preferences” raises the risk that the user will remain dissatisfied.

Often designing a site to your preferences leads to a functional website lacking conversions. If you are experiencing this; one method for identifying the cause of the problem is usability auditing.

Website usability testing is the evaluation of a website by testing it on users. Usability testing can be done on various levels of product development. Ultimately, website usability testing will uncover a variety of areas to focus on for improvement in terms of converting your audience.

 

Tip! Performing an Ecommerce replatforming: make sure that your website is localized to the foreign target audience. PickWriters are able to help you with all the stages of localization. And you will be able to expand your target audience as much as possible. 

2. The Pursuit of Conceptual

A conceptual model is the mental model that people carry of how something should be done. Conceptual modelling can be carried out at a very early point in the design cycle so that there is a basic understanding of how users conceive tasks and this can then be brought to bear on UI design.

One common problem is that design and development specialists often look at a website very differently than a user. In the end, this results with the development of a largely subjective vision of the designer or other specialists.

 

When the real users visit the site the overall experience of using the website can be very disappointing.

 

For example: In your opinion, you have developed the perfect menu of an online store, and made the button “buy” the right (in accordance with your personal research) color. You have picked up the most concise (or, on the contrary, detailed) description of the goods. The design of the online store is trendy. But you are faced with a large number of abandoned carts and sales are not boosting.

Example 2: You have decided to market a new model of a hairdryer. But you didn’t point out an important feature of the design, which affects its basic capabilities. In your conceptual model, this quality was not so important. As a result, customers were left disappointed.

 

In all cases, the main point of concern is that you didn’t take your real users into account.

 

The ideal option is when the conceptual model maximally coincides with the mental one. That is, with user expectations. To do this, you need to conduct online surveys, split testing, usability tests of your customers. Put only specific questions and look for answers to them, and then implement the results when transferring to another platform.

3. Avoid Popups In Any Way

Not so long ago, pop-ups were the leader in lead generation tools used by marketers. Such a tool is convenient, visible, efficient, and with their help, you can quite simply organize a subscription, collect data about users, conduct a survey and so on.

 

The problem… Users found pop-ups annoying and Google decided to crack down on this type of intrusive intermediate advertising.

What are the alternatives you should be looking for when Ecommerce replatforming?

1) Stationary banner ads – Hard to miss banners that don’t obstruct your content.

2) Stationary sidebar ads – advertisements you place on the side column of your web pages, ideally targeted to your page content.

3) Pop-up fly-outs – smaller, fly-out style ads that can be triggered by where a visitor navigates on your website.

4) Notification style ads – like those notifications appear and disappear on your desktop when you get a new email or when you’re on Facebook.

5) Behaviour-driven pop-ups – pop-ups that appear only after certain conditions are met (eg: after a certain amount of page views, to upsell at checkout, etc).

6) Time-driven pop-ups – gives your audience time to read your content and learn more before they’re hit with an ad.

7) Landing page specific pop-ups – tailored to a particular landing page that’s targeted to a certain buyer at a certain point of their buyer’s journey.

8) Exit pop-ups – appears when a visitor navigates to another site, away from yours. Despite it’s similar qualities to a regular pop-up, it’s less intrusive as your visitor has already had an uninterrupted view of your content. These give you a final opportunity to extend your offer.

4. Hasty Feedback Gathering

Feedback is needed so that you can find out what and why your target consumer wants. But if you hurry to collect information, the entire process could have a negative impact on your business.

Before you begin collecting feedback from customers, you need to make sure you have clearly defined why you are seeking feedback.

 

Let’s say, your client has just purchased a product, and you start sending him letters with an obsessive request to leave a review, or call for “return to the site and re-fill the cart.” The buyer has not yet appreciated all the pros and cons of the product or service, and you already demand something from him.

 

It is necessary to wait. The “aftertaste” of the purchase will definitely be more objective than the review that will be written immediately after the acquisition. This will add honesty to your relationship with the customer: being guided by emotions, the user can give completely different feedback that will not help you. Most likely it will only prevent you from getting better. Moreover, the users still have not appreciated in full your new platform so give them some time to get accustomed and they will gladly share their opinions even without your pleas.

5. Targeting the Most Experienced

When studying user needs during testing, do not look for an “ideal” target audience. This may lead to a narrowing of opportunities and prospects for development. In the end, you may complicate the content too much, make it unsatisfactory for other buyers. Thereby, you will push away from yourself a part of a completely loyal audience.

 

Remember: both experts and novices can become your clients. Your task is to create comfortable conditions for all. Most professionals insist that information should be conveyed in a simple and accessible language.

 

Along with Ecommerce replatforming, start your educational mission: train your clients, help in the most difficult issues. Build a development strategy based on the different needs of your customers.

6. Intrusive Engagement

Interactiveness is a good way to increase the user’s time on the site and contribute to the brand’s memorability. However, if this is done obsessively and unskillfully, the effect will be exactly the opposite. Popups with calls to actions like, “Maybe you will still stay and buy something?,” or “But have you not forgotten this necessary and important accessory? ” can be a real turn-off.

 

The advice, in this case, is simple: do not be intrusive.
Give the user the choice to stay or to go. Provide all the information he needs to make a purchase, and do it in the way that fits the desires and moods of a potential buyer. Lack of obtrusiveness is a huge plus in the formation of customer loyalty which, is like a fly in the ointment, can spoil good impressions from your new platform.

7. Avoid Bottle-necks

The selection of products on the sites should be similar to shopping offline. Allow the user to move freely between the product, but try to avoid the moments when he needs to go back, click on the logo or go down to the footer (the closing part of the site or blog). When performing an Ecommerce replatforming, make sure to use the “Quick View” in the catalog, recommendation blocks, and cross-references in the cards of your product.

8. Checkout

Keep your checkout simple! A large number of fields for ordering discourages the consumer to complete the purchase on the site.

 

For example: Forcing a user to register and fill out a ton of personal information just to buy a product is a real deterrent.

9. The Rule of Three Clicks

The rule of 3 clicks is the idea that a user is only willing to click three times before abandoning a site if they don’t reach what they’re after. While creating an intuitive navigational architecture is important, the idea of needing to reach everything immediately makes eCommerce clients a little uneasy.

 

Obviously making it hard for customers to find what they’re looking for is a big no, no. That being said, don’t get caught up in the myth about 3 clicks. Way back in 2003 Joshua Porter published an article for UIE debunking the rule. In it he explained a test that analyzed 44 users attempting 620 tasks and showed no drop-off after the magic third click. In fact, most users kept clicking until they completed their task. Get more detail on this study by clicking below…

10. Color Effect: The Site Is Not a Rainbow

Marketers have long used such an instrument of exposure as color. By the way, you knew that 85% of consumers give their preference to the product is based on color. Therefore, the use of such a tool of influence in the UX design is a must, especially when Ecommerce  replatforming! Unfortunate color contrast and the lack of color matching to the general context are the things that will make users hate your website. Therefore, when choosing a color scheme, you must choose one that will successfully complement each other and not create any visual discomfort.

11. Redundancy & Overcrowding

Proper UX design uses a minimalistic approach, but redundancy and overcrowding creates the opposite effect.

Just take a look at the example below… Wow! What an eye sore. It’s impossible to take in any of the information presented.

Proper usage of white space makes content easy on the eyes and easier to understand. Skillful web developers use white space strategically as an essential component of their designs. It is safe to say that white space shapes a user’s experience.

The point is that carefully arranged website elements evoke a strong emotional connection. Minimalism is an awesome approach for designers who work on content. Then readers may view it from multiple devices with various screen sizes.

 

 

Brief Conclusion

We have listed the most popular UX design problems when Ecommerce replatforming, and we have provided some tips on how to fix them when transferring your e-commerce website to another platform. In order to avoid the perpetual loss of users and empty carts, do not neglect UX!

Remember that even small changes that improve the user experience with the site can significantly increase the conversion rate.