A Multi-Part Usability Review carried out on an ecommerce site for improving the check-out funnel and findability on the web site.

1. Usability Matters!
Indian Gifts Portal
Persona Based Heuristic Analysis
Applying the collective wisdom of decades of e-commerce usability studies

2. Indian Gift Giving Psyche
• Gifts are often carefully computed metrics by
which social relationships are
maintained, challenged, or enhanced.
In other words the paradigm of thought changes
when gifts come into play. Its shopping with
different priorities.

3. Persona Profile: Payal Watchmaker
• Works at Shantha Biotechnics (P) Ltd
• Past: Stanford University
• Studied at University of Pittsburgh
• Past: St. Joseph's Convent, Bhopal
• Brother: Premal Watchmaker – Gurgaon
• Listens to Edgar Meyer, Zakhir Hussain etc.
• Loves to travel and go hiking
• Although is a Parsi living in the US, she still
wants to send a Rakhi to her brother
every year, using the occasion to make
him feel special, in Gurgaon every year
using Indian Gifts Portal
• Is fairly comfortable financially. Especially
when you turn dollars into rupees.
• Is married to her long term boyfriend
from college who is also a biochemical
engineer but does not have any kids.

4. Cognitive Walk-through
• Comes to the site with a budget of $50-100 for the gift
and seeking a fairly simple rakhi to go with it.
• Scrolls down, she scans through the collection.
• Mentally shortlists a leather bag on display and moves
on to nautical pieces.
• Finds that the nautical pieces are very cheap in terms
of price so they may not be of very high quality and
since her budget is slightly higher, she scans the left
menu for the leather bag. But she doesn’t know what
to scan for since she doesn’t remember the exact name
of the category, so she presses the back button.

5. • She clicks on the handbag and goes inside, the bag is
more expensive than she had bargained for but it looks
like its nicely finished.
• Looks for a shortlist button but can’t find it so settles
for ‘adding to cart’. As soon as she clicks on ‘Add to
Cart’ she sees the cross sell window, but since she is
still to find a Rakhi, she opts to ‘SKIP’ instead of using
the ‘Proceed to Checkout’ button.
• The skip button takes her to the checkout page, she
fumes but clicks on the top bar where it says
‘Handbags’ wanting to go back to being exactly where
she was.
• She clicks on category ‘Leather handbags / Purses’ but
goes back since it contains all of the ladies variety.
Then clicks on the ‘Wallets for Men’ category to see if
she can find a wallet that looks finished but is still in
her budget. She is after all, price conscious.

6. • In the wallets section she is not able to find a
wallet that fits into her budget since most
displayed are cheaper than that, the few that she
is able to find in her budget don’t really fit her
taste.
• So she clicks on the ‘Send Rakhi’ tab and starts to
find a Rakhi instead, mentally making a note to go
back and search some more for a more
appropriate gift. The click opens another window
where she can see the categories.
• She clicks on the ‘Mouli Rakhis’ since she is
looking for a simple thread Rakhi. Her brother is
quite a bit older than she is and of sober but
classy tastes.

7. • She finds a Rakhi after a couple of pages adds an
accompaniment of ‘cheenikum kaju Katlis’ and
clicks on Checkout.
• Once she goes over her shopping cart she realizes
that the total is below $60 and she still has not
bought something for Bhabi and the kids.
• So she clicks on ‘Home Crafts’ from the top
menu.
• While scanning the products for something for
bhabi, she scrolls all the way to the end of the
pages and back twice before she spies a lamp
that her bhabi will appreciate. She clicks on that
to buy.

8. • She finds that she is now paying $83 for the
gift, so now she mentally calculates that she is
nearly $20 away from a round figure that she can
afford.
• So she clicks on toys now seeking to find some
toy that both kids can play with at the same time.
• She can’t seem to find a toy that she may like so
she clicks on ‘Chocolates’ instead.
• Is looking for an assorted box of good
chocolates, first she clicks on the
‘Belgian/Homemade’ link but the Belgian
chocolates look more decorative than
chocolates, so she clicks on ‘Lindt chocolates’

9. • She finds that most hampers are ‘Sold out’ so
she clicks on the first available hamper that
she can find.
• Clicks on ‘Add to cart’ and checks out.
• The ‘Email address’ field is too light to be
seen against her screen so she is a little
confused but she finds it and enters her email
ID since she is a repeat customer.
• She gets a ‘No email ID & Password match
error. So she unclicks the ‘I am a repeat
customer’ button and moves forward.
• Checkout goes smoothly and she buys the
product.

10. Overall Impression
• Been visiting for three years and the categories still
confuse her a little bit although she knows her way
around.
• A function that works like the shortlist function may be
needed for comparison shopping. The function can also
work as adding to the cart but in a temporary manner
so as to become permanent when the user wishes to
make it permanent. Can be
‘Confirmed/Unconfirmed/cancelled’ so that the user
can view the changes in the total when it happens.
• The need for faceted search is apparent at least
allowing for simple choices in ‘Gender’ ‘Price range’ &
‘brand’ to be made

11. Usability issues
• Categorization re-look needed.
• The names of products should be clear as to what
they mean, usually only the decorative word is
apparent and the rest of the name gets lost.
• Contrast on forms is less and should be increased.
• Navigation in the case of ‘SKIP’ should be fixed, it
should take the person back to the place where
they came from. OR there should be a ‘Continue
shopping’ button there as well.

12. Persona Profile – Shruti Joshi
• Mother of two in Gurgaon
Haryana
• Works at Striker, a pub as
a PR person.
• Brother lives in Santa
Clara, California with his
wife and two grown up
sons.
• Sends Rakhi every year
using various websites,
likes to order the whole
gamut of things. Gifts,
Thali, Rakhi etc.

13. Cognitive Walk-through
• Shruti is searching for a silver Rakhi when she
spies Indian Gifts Portal as the first link on google.
• She clicks on the link and goes to the website
with the idea of finding a rakhi that her brother
will wear for some time, an emotional memento
perhaps, but she also knows that her brother will
not wear anything remotely feminine, and will
not wear anything with religious symbols.

14. • She has to crawl the entire length of the 2 pages
of results that show. The entire display is very
confusing. There is no clustering of any sort
which shows similar products together. She
considers the silver bracelets and discards them
because they look to be too feminine.
• She needs a way to block off the silver bracelets
and just see the silver & mouli rakhis.
• She cannot find a Rakhi which is finely crafted
enough to wear every day. Spies the ‘Sold Out’
Rakhis and clicks on the next page to see if there
are any available ones mixed in the results. There
she finds a ‘Sun Rakhi’ that is perfect. The design
is smooth and the mouli is also fine looking. BUT
its sold out.

15. • So she immediately runs a google search on the name of
the Rakhi to see if some other website is carrying it. The
only relevant search result that comes is the website itself.
She tries again & runs a search on the term ‘silver sun rakhi’
– again she finds that most search results are from the
website itself. So she checks out the other links first, one is
from a jewellery website with even more feminine looking
bracelets and another is from a website which is carrying
even cheaper looking versions. So she checks out the links
from within Indian Gifts Portal itself.
• While checking out those links she finds a similar Rakhi
where the sun motif is smaller but yet it is masculine
looking. Even that Rakh is sold out, so she clicks on the link
that says ‘Gold Rakhis’. There she finds a protective symbol
of the hand in gold. It is tied with a simple mouli and could
be worn for some amount of time. Even after being
worn, she’d be sure that the rakhi would not be thrown
away.

16. • She adds to cart. On the ‘add to cart’ page she is not able to find
the continue shopping button since it is at such low contrast to the
rest of the buttons. Once she finds it, she goes back to the page
where she was coming from.
• After surfing a bit trying to find a bhabi rakhi, she finds a bhai-
bhabhi rakhi set which she feels is more appropriate since the
collection of ‘Bhabi’ rakhis only is quite limited. So she removes the
gold rakhi from her cart.
• She also shortlists a dry fruit tray which can double up as a rakhi
thali.
• In the middle of her shopping, she receives a phone call and is
distracted. Takes her 4 hours to return to the same window. She
finds a ‘TwistToy’, one which she knows her children find very
fascinating so she buys one for her nephew. It’s a laugh because her
nephew keeps complaining that she treats him that he’s 12 yrs old.
• She’s redirected to the ‘Add to Cart’ page where she sees her
previous shopping has disappeared. At this point she presses the
back button several times and is able to find the Bhai-Bhabi rakhi
that she had bought earlier. But she finds the process of finding the
tray too difficult so she cancels the tray.

17. • She decides to check out the Rakhi Puja thalis on
the USA gift shop. But all the thalis that are
available have sweets which are available in the
US also. She wants to send something that they
won’t get easily in the states. But there is nothing
of that sort, so she decides to buy a simple thali
from the collection of thalis itself. One that has a
very meagre Rakhi since she has already bought a
rakhi for her brother and bhabi.
• But she can’t seem to find a way to add sweets to
the package, there is no category of sweets.
• She gives up.

18. Overall Impression
• Why can’t I buy everything separately? There’s
simply not enough variety available on the combo
packages to contain everything she may need.
• Why does the site forget what I’ve ordered? The
collection is nice with everything under one
umbrella. But in order to avoid these
problems, next year I will shop at some other site
in advance.
• Has to agree that this is the best site to come to if
she doesn’t have the time but can order
everything in one go.

19. Usability issues
• Color of the ‘Continue Shopping’ button is too light against the
background.
• Why are some Rakhis viewable in search only? But they are not
present in the relevant search results?
• There has to be a way to follow a set pattern in buying something
together or as separate wholes. Perhaps some cross selling on the
‘Add to Cart’ page itself. Or intuitive buttons that suggest the next
step in the buying pattern. It could be Birthday Gifts, Anniversary
Gifts or whatever, the cross selling offered should fit the buying
pattern.
• The session on most shopping sites lasts more than 15 days, if
you’ve not logged in. If you are logged in the more efficient
behaviour should be keeping the item in the cart for as long as it is
not added to or overwritten. You can prompt the user when he’s
adding to the cart that there are previously shopped items and give
him the option of clear cart & moving on keeping the item in his
shopping list.

20. Persona Profile – Anand Ratn
• Young programmer living
in Bangalore working with
Tata Infosys.
• Has the typical High
Income No Incumbents
behavior common to the
type.
• Has a girlfriend and sister
living back in Bokaro.
• Contemplates using
online shopping to send
gifts to them.

21. Cognitive Walkthrough – Persona 3
• Wants to send a BIG teddy bear to his
girlfriend on her birthday. She is in Varanasi
and he’s in Bangalore. So he wants to send
something to make her feel special.
• But since he’s actually saving up for his sisters
wedding, he doesn’t have much of a budget.
Perhaps 2K is as far as he’s willing to go for
everything together.
• Searches for ‘Send Teddy Bear to India’. Gets
Indian Gifts Portal as the sixth link.

22. • Clicks on each link but doesn’t find a ‘BIG’ teddy bear
anywhere. Most places there's no way to search for big
toys. Although the names of the gifts all contain the
size of the teddy bear so the process of elimination is
easy.
• At Indian Gifts Portal he finds the ‘Sort by Price’ option
so he figures a bigger toy must be more expensive and
sees that there is a big bunny soft toy that his girlfriend
may like but its out of his budget. So he goes back and
starts looking for a deal for a big soft toy.
• Knows about Flipkart so clicks on that link in the
sponsored links box. There he not only finds a teddy
bear that is in his budget and bigger than this one but
also has a combo deal with another toy attached. He
reads the reviews below and finds that a person who
had given great reviews has posted a few months later
that all the fur fell off from that bear.

23. • So he comes back to Indian Gifts Portal to see if
there is a deal available. He looks in the toys
category but there seems to be no deal available.
In the ‘Flowers’ category he sees
combos/hampers which could perhaps be a deal
so he clicks on it.
• There he finds hampers that contain everything.
Since now he knows how to sort by price, he does
so. In the middle of the second page he finds
something that fits his budget with
chocolates, teddy and flowers but the teddy in
that is quite small. Then he spies a discounted
deal, a price that fits his budget and the size he
has in mind. The good thing is, it also has cake
and flowers attached. So he clicks on Add to Cart.

24. • He was able to buy it without any problems so
he liked Indian Gifts Portal for it.
• But a little while later, he received an email
saying that they will be able to deliver only
after his girlfriend’s birthday.
• He was angry that the site did not tell him
that. So he went back to the site and
discovered that there was a link that said
‘Delivery in 22 cities only’. He fumed about
missing the link but couldn’t do anything but
cancel the order.

25. Overall Impression
• There are combo deals but why aren’t they
apparent? He would not have needed to go to
Flipkart if the combo deal available here was
apparent to him.
• Sorting by size, color and other attributes would
have really helped him search.
• The site should have something that makes it
clear to which locations delivery happens, and if a
delivery will not happen in a location, it should
have warned him before taking his money.

26. Usability issues
• Find-ability is an established issue with the
website.
• Building shipping logic into the shopping cart
process will help build and keep a customer
base. Ambiguity kills more sales than
cancelled orders.
• More clarity in shipping including date of
delivery, delivery areas and delivery cost via a
calculator available everywhere on the site.

27. Persona Profile: Artur Szarszewski
• Polish Archeologist
• Currently is working on
a project on an island in
Philippines
• Is very fond of
handicrafts of any
origin.
• Is interested in buying
handicrafts indigenous
to India.

28. Solving Usability Issues
Find-ability.
Clarity by Design.
Appropriate system feedback.

29. Information Foraging
• Users tend to prefer to take small, incremental
steps through the information space to find
relevant information. They tend to browse –
even when they know precisely what they are
looking for from the onset.

30. Menu – Providing Information Scent
• The menu should be broad enough for the
user to at least catch the scent of the solution
he’s looking for.
• Should be deep enough to lead him on to
clicking further or lead him out of the menu
by process of elimination.

31. Flowers CakesChocolates Home Décor Clothes & Accessories Toys Festive Gifts Best BuysFlowers
Flowers for Romance
Heart Shaped Arrangements
Serenades (Multi-day)
Flowers & Teddy
Flowers & Chocolates
Flowers for Celebration
Bouquets/ Baskets
Flowers & Wine
Vase Arrangements
Good Luck Plants
Wedding Car Décor
Not so Happy Flowers
Floral Condolences
Artificial Flowers
Premium Flowers
Designer Roses
Designer Orchids
Designer Gerberas
Designer Carnations
Designer Lilies
Mixed Designer Blooms
Flower Deals
Combos/Hampers
Special Deal Flowers
Flowers & Sweets
Flowers & Fruits
Less than Rs. 500
Rs. 500 – Rs. 1000
Above Rs 1000
Flowers on Discount
Flowers by Delivery
Express Delivery Gifts
Midnight Special
Fixed Time Delivery
Flowers By City
Delhi
Kolkata
Mumbai & Suburbs
Baroda
Ahmedabad
Other Cities>>
Flowers Worldwide
USA
Canada
UK
Australia
Other Countries >>

32. Faceted Navigation
• Done right, faceted navigation provides your
customers with a powerful tool to find exactly
what they’re looking for, without much effort,
among a wide range of merchandise.

33. But what facets are important?
• sorting by price (which entails showing the
price...something that sites STILL regularly fail
to do!),
• Providing assistance or information to help
shoppers unfamiliar with a product determine
what the relevant parameters of consideration
might.

34. Type of Flower
Roses
Gerbera
Carnations
lilies
Orchids
Mixed Flowers
Arrangement
Bouquet
Bunch
Wreath
Vase
Emotion
Love & Romance
Celebrations
Good Luck
Sorry
Condolences
Wedding
Hampers
Flowers & Chocos
Flowers & Teddys
Flowers & Sweets
Flowers & Fruits
Flowers & Wine
Looking for…
Rs.150
Rs. 500
Shipping&Delivery

35. Type of Flower
Roses
Gerbera
Carnations
lilies
Orchids
Mixed Flowers
Arrangement
Bouquet
Bunch
Wreath
Vase
Emotion
Love & Romance
Celebrations
Good Luck
Sorry
Condolences
Wedding
Hampers
Flowers & Chocos
Flowers & Teddys
Flowers & Sweets
Flowers & Fruits
Flowers & Wine
Looking for…
Shipping&Delivery
Rs. 5000
Rs.100
Rs. 1000
Rs. 2000
Rs. 3000
Rs. 4000
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d
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s
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s
d
f
s
d
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s
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Rs. 4000
s
d
f
s
f
s
d
f
s
d
f
s
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R
s
R
s
Rs. 150

36. Type of Flower
Roses
Gerbera
Carnations
lilies
Orchids
Mixed Flowers
Arrangement
Bouquet
Bunch
Wreath
Vase
Emotion
Love & Romance
Celebrations
Good Luck
Sorry
Condolences
Wedding
Hampers
Flowers & Chocos
Flowers & Teddys
Flowers & Sweets
Flowers & Fruits
Flowers & Wine
Looking for…
Rs.150
Rs. 500
Shipping
Calculator
Destination
---------------
Shipping to
India is
always free
Call us at
+91
7666102001
For any
problems
or queries
- Country -
- State -
Estimate

37. Type of Flower
Roses
Gerbera
Carnations
lilies
Orchids
Mixed Flowers
Arrangement
Bouquet
Bunch
Wreath
Vase
Emotion
Love & Romance
Celebrations
Good Luck
Sorry
Condolences
Wedding
Hampers
Flowers & Chocos
Flowers & Teddys
Flowers & Sweets
Flowers & Fruits
Flowers & Wine
Looking for…
Rs.150
Shipping
to:
-USA-
-Oklahoma-
Rs. 56/kg
For orders
before 5 PM
today
Date of
Delivery:
10/10/2013
(5-10 Days)
---------------
Free
shipping in
India
Call us at
+91
7666102001
For any
problems
or queries

38. Increase Clarity in Design
• Create groups by color, proximity, shape, and
alignment
• Color, shared background and co-location are
stronger grouping cues than outlines. (Beck
and Palmer, 2002)
• For senior people and people surfing on
various tablets and other devices, the contrast
should be high on actions

39. Categorization of Search Results – Brilliant but distracting
The categorization of search results is a brilliant idea but the way it is presented
takes away from the search results page in terms of clarity. The design should be
clearer than this. Sample on the next page.

40. Rs. 4352 $675
Waterproof Office bag
Rs. 6453 $123
Hi Max – Sports & Travel Bag
Rs. 2499 $43.99
Striped Cloth Strolley
Remove the lines around
the products & category
labels to reduce visual
clutter and ease
scanning.
Rupees and Dollars are different colors to ease
price scan for both type of buyers.
The name of the product is shown in full.
Names are descriptive and not decorative

41. Rs. 4352 $675
Waterproof Office bag
Rs. 6453 $123
Hi Max –Sports & Travel Bag
- Delivery in India only
- Size 14.50 x 8 x 11.5 inch
- Colours - Black
Rs. 2499 $43.99
Striped Cloth Strolley
456 Travel Bags
On MouseOver will highlight the row and the product on which the mouse rests.
The product will show more details that may make or break the decision of clicking on it
The row will show the category and highlight the number of products in that specific
category.

42. Advantages of Inline Validation

43. Comparative Analysis
A diagnosis Vis – Vis Industry Standard Best Practices

44. Checkout
Funnel
Payment Made
Shipping
info
Login
Add to Cart - 63%
- 14%
- 7%
= 3.2%
Product Selection

45. Abandon Cart Rate
84%
Indian Gifts
Portal
73%
Listrack
Abandonment
Index

46. Great Work!
Barring a handful of steps, the site still pretty much follows a pretty good
path during the check-out process.
But here’re a few things that are missing…

49. Step 1: Reduce Ambiguity in Shipping
• Add a shipping calculator button that enables
the customer to calculate shipping costs at any
time during the shopping process.

50. Highlight conditions for free shipping wherever
there are shipping charges

52. Step 2: Increase the ‘Save Cart’ time
• Ideally a shopping cart should not lose a
product till the product loses its value. In the
case of shopping, that translates to anytime
between 15 days and a month.
• Save the cart even when the user is not logged
in.
• In the case of ‘Add to Cart’, let the user review
the contents of the cart and support both
functions of ‘Clear and Add to Cart’ ‘Don’t
clear and Add to Cart’

54. PET Recommendations
Persuasion. Emotion. Trust. The three hooks that have been proven to
add to the bottom line in e-commerce.

55. Cognitive Lock-In
• You can obtain web site loyalty without using
extrinsic rewards like frequent flyer points or
discounted prices.
• Three marketing professors found that customers
return to e-commerce web sites because they
have already learned how to use the site and that
it was easy to learn.
• Going to a different site incurs greater effort
(greater "cognitive costs") than re-using the site
they already know. The outcome of liking a site
and disliking change is called "cognitive lock-in".

56. Persuade. Connect. Lock in.
Persuasion
- Scarcity
- Urgency
- Social Proof
Build Emotional Bond
- Cross Sell
- Goals
- Lessen Load
Establish Trust
- Establish Trust
- Match Expectations
- Lock in

57. Persuade.
Build Scarcity. Build Urgency. Give Social Proof.

58. How to build Scarcity?

59. How to build Urgency?

60. How to build Urgency without a sale?

61. What is Social Proof?

62. Connect – Make it Easy
Cross sell to lessen Cognitive Load.
Set goals to match their mental model.

63. Cross Sell Early on in the process
• The earlier in the decision process a product is
recommended, the more likely it is that users will
choose that product. (Ho and Tam, 2005)
• The focus of cross-selling should be to lessen
cognitive load. i.e. the effort it takes to reach the
next item on their shopping list.

64. The Contrast
Principle
• One of the most powerful things
that can be done to close a sale
is to help the customer see the
value of something. And that is
accomplished by comparing its
value to something else
• The user should be able to see
more products that fit into the
same category while looking at a
product. At least one at around
the same price, at least one
product should be higher priced
and one should be lower in
price.

65. Match Goals to Mental Models
• Birthday Gifts are generally – Flowers, cake &
Gift. Cross sell whatever is missing from the
combo
• Rakhi Gifts generally contain –
Rakhi, Mithai, Gift, Lumba etc..
• Since these are multi-step goals, you save the
customer cognitive load by offering help
achieving the next steps.

66. Gift Cake Flowers
Have a Promo Code?
3 Active Promotions
Apply
Continue Shopping

67. Lock In.
Provide Comfort by building Trust.
Lessen discomfort by building & matching expectations.
Recognize the Customer to build familiarity & Cognitive Lock In.

68. Build Trust by Reiterating Security

69. Build Expectations Right
One size doesn’t fit all anymore.
Every delivery is different!
• When will my package
reach?
• How much will shipping cost
me?

70. Recognize the customer & serve the right
cross sells

71. Immediate To-Do List
• Increase Clarity by de-cluttering the search results page design
• Re-do all Mega Menus to hold more descriptive navigational links
• Add a shipping calculator
• Add a price band
• Names of products should be descriptive and not decorative
• Increase contrast on all action buttons and forms
• Increase ‘Save time’ on the shopping cart to at least 2 weeks for not
logged in and till next login for logged in people. Ask before wiping it
clean.
• Provide clear labels enabling customers to find where they are i.e.
breadcrumbs, labels that identify that a person is within a category where
there are special privileges – no shipping, discounts etc.
• Add inline validation to ease error recovery.

72. Overall To-Do List
• Increase Find-ability
– Add faceted search
– Add Cross sell features based on browsing history
– Apply the contrast principle to cross selling suggestions
– Recognize the user and serve cross sells accordingly.
– Add a ‘Social’ element to the site, perhaps something that says ‘We
bought this today’ on the home screen. It does not need to be on
every page.Use the bottom of the page for other cross sells.
• Re-categorize according to Card Sorting Study (TBD)
• Increase way finding by offering either breadcrumb navigation
that makes sense or none at all