[thelist] Ecom.: Order Info: One or Many Pages?

aardvark roselli at earthlink.net
Fri Nov 10 00:12:23 CST 2000


> From: "Warden, Matt" <mwarden at odyssey-design.com>
> 
> Speed? Hmmm... I don't think that's a very good argument. A user is quite
> lucky if he/she makes zero input errors on the form. If you have one long form
> for order information, that means that, for every input error and user change,
> the entire form has to reload, rather than just the form for that bit of
> information.

i agree with you completely... user testing on *many* ecommerce 
sites showed me that people always screw stuff up... i also found 
that people don't want to enter all their information, especially CC 
info, on a single-page form without an idea of how it will respond... 
steps before that can establish how errors are handled, and 
capture appropriate information to provide accurate quotes for 
shipping and tax...

as for user dropout, i never saw that as an issue... we didn't have 
people dropping out due to multi-page forms...

[...]
> through a step process. HOWEVER, I almost *always* leave a site before
> finishing if the step I'm currently on isn't highlighted in some sort of
> process map:
> 
> Checkout:     Customer Info   Shipping Info   [Billing Info]   Preview
> 
> so that I know how much more I have to go through to get to what I want.

that's what i do... Shopping cart --> Billing info --> Shipping info --> 
Credit card info --> Verification page --> Receipt, with email receipt 
to follow...

i always try to tell the user where he/she is, at least by step 
number of the total steps... i also explain it all up-front whenever 
possible...

i'm also a stickler for buttons that have iconography to indicate the 
purpose, as well as descriptive text... instead of telling a user there 
are errors, i also like to highlight problem fields... there are many of 
these little things that are often more important than concerns like 
extra trips to the server... and hey, don't forget your HTML4 form 
accessibility features...

you can see a very low-budget one for a not-for-profit site that even 
integrates these features... no order site should be without some of 
these... http://herdaboutbuffalo.com/merchandise/




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