How to boost e-commerce usability

Online retailers have been offered tips on how best to improve the usability of their websites.



Writing for Business Zone, Chris Barling of Actinic advised e-commerce organisations to ensure that it is clear to shoppers how they add items to their online baskets and to use common phrases like View Basket, Checkout, About Us and Contact Us.



He also suggested sticking to conventions such as having the logo link to the homepage and placing shopping baskets at the top of each page.



Website owners should bear in mind the fact that those coming to the site through search engines need to see a page that "supports the brand proposition", as they can land on any page on the site.



"This is another reason for providing contact details throughout the site, including telephone number, email and physical address," Mr Barling stated.



Recent research by Ciao Surveys for Yuseo found that half of web users are unable to complete simple usability tasks on e-commerce sites in the UK, France and Germany, vnunet.com reports.



This news story was brought to you by Bluhalo, a leading UK digital agency.