You’d never head out on a road trip without a map—or, more likely, your car’s GPS system. The same concept applies when hunting for a product or service on the web. If a site doesn’t provide you with a well-planned, easily navigable interface, you’re likely to feel just as frustrated as you would on a desolate stretch of interstate without a road sign in sight. Frustrated, and highly unlikely to get to where you want to go.
The importance of effective website navigation has skyrocketed along with the widespread use of search engines. Earlier this year, eCommerce analysts estimated that only 25% of online consumers begin the shopping process at a site’s home page, with a large majority landing directly on other pages via Google, Yahoo, or a shopping comparison site. With shoppers dropping in at multiple locations throughout your site, it’s critical that you present them with a cohesive, context-independent navigational structure that shows how the page fits into the grand scheme of things.
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Time and time again, we encounter eCommerce retailers that think “they know their users”. And sure, most of them have a good idea of who they are. But knowing who they are is a different story than knowing how they act, what they like, and what they don’t like about your website. In fact, these behaviors and attitudes have a tremendous impact on the effectiveness of your eCommerce website converting visitors into buyers. The good news is, that you can gain insight into your users by performing user testing. An often-overlooked tool by eCommerce merchants, this tactic has typically been reserved for government organizations that are mandated to ensure their websites are accessible to everyone, and to large scale corporations with the wallet to fund user testing.
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