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

[Warden, Matt]

> [tip author="rudy"]
> Best Practices for Designing Shopping Cart and Checkout Interfaces
> http://www.dack.com/web/shopping_cart.html
> [/tip]


I finally got some time to really read this. Hmmmm... I really don't think I
agree with this:

<quote>
 Mailing Address and Phone Number
 Ship-to Address
 Request Shipping Method
 Request Payment Method

This list is the information required by all e-retailers in order to complete
an online transaction. They are listed together because, in a well-designed
checkout process, they should be asked together. Some e-retailers, such as
eToys, make the mistake of creating individual web pages for many of the
required elements. Grouping these elements together on a single, well-designed
page is the best practice for the following reasons:

     1. Speed   A lone trip to the web server is made when the required
elements are grouped together on a single page. When separated on individual
pages the system requires several roundtrip visits to the server, and these
back-and-forth trips increase transaction time.
     2. User Dropout Avoidance   The more steps involved in a process, the
more likely users are to drop out before successful completion...
     3. Scrolling is OK...
</quote>

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.

User dropout avoidance? Maybe. I guess it lessens the number of requests on
the server and, because of that, speeds up the response time, but most of that
argument is killed by my above point. Personally, I get more frustrated when I
see a huge form asking for all kinds of information than I do when I go
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.


What about y'all? Thoughts?


--
mattwarden
mattwarden.com