3 Website Design & Development Predictions
Posted by jonpape | Filed under Internet Marketing, Usability
These are my predictions for retailer websites in the next 5 years. They are based on conversion research, customer interaction, and successful advertising metrics. Some of the “enhancements” are already being adopted by successful retailers but I’m sure more merchants will adopt these 4 user interface design and web development improvements.
1) Merchants will figure out that top navigation and side navigation are not important and emphasize the search tool on websites.
Amazon Search Bar
Customers don’t care about most merchants. Customers don’t care about a merchants product selection. Internet users do not “browse” stores. The goal is to make it as easy as possible for the customer to find what they are looking and for the customer to have an easy, convenient customer experience.
- Must consumers start looking for a product on Google because category taxonomy is misleading or confusing or they don’t know what they are looking for.
- Amazon’s search bar stretches the entire length of the page.
- Once you reach the Amazon category page, the side navigation disappears (helps with SEO).
- Amazon lists deals where the side navigation used to be.
Prediction: Most navigation will disappear and the search will be emphasized even more.
Future web sites will eliminate top and side navigation.
2) Everything is miscellaneous. Get rid of categories and add tags.
Indentical Products in Multiple Categories.
Categories create a barrier for customers and merchants. Above is a picture of the search results from Meijer.com. If the user searches for GPS, merchants have placed the product in multiple categories across the site creating a bewildering array of choices for the customer. Decision paralysis ensues and overall conversion suffers.
Below are a list of some additional problems.
- Categories are a human creation and are limited by person, organization, & regional perception.
- Categories are hard to scale.
- Categories can be misleading.
- Categories create duplicate content (a SEO no-no).
- Categories require constant maintenance.
- Niche products are often squeezed into an irrelevant category (craft supplies in the home site section).
- Niche product categorization can create can create problems when products are sent out in data feeds or promo codes are issued. If you have a site wide promotion that excludes electronics but GPS units are also in a season category, should merchants exclude that category?
- Other organizations such as affiliates or comparison shopping engines may categorize products differently.
- Customers may not be able to find what they are looking for. Should garage storage be categorized in the home category or the outdoor category?
Prediction: Tag products with the labels used in categorization and let the user and the web site search categorize products for you.
Some searches will still cause problems. If the user searches for “irons”, that search will return “golf irons”, “steam irons”, and “hair irons”. Most Internet users are knowledgeable enough now to know how to refine a search to see exactly what they want. Additionally, a series of related searches or dynamic search suggestion can be added to help users.
Bing Dynamic Search Selection.
Merchants wouldn’t have to worry about miscategorizing products, duplicate content, or development and design of navigation when adding or deleting products. Additionally, web sites would essentially be flat and SEO would be improved.
3) More Retailer Websites will Adopt Fluid Layouts.
Smashing Magazine Article About Fluid layouts
In 2007, an unnamed merchant launches their retail website. Templates are developed using a fixed layout. CSS is developed for these templates. Template content blocks are developed for the CMS that handles images, video, and html. Everything is designed for an average browser width of 800px. Two years later, the average customer browser width is 1050px. In 5 years, the average customer browser width is going to be over 1600px (just a guess) and half the traffic will be coming from mobile devises. Eventually, this merchant will have to redo everything to accommodate changing user preferences and changes in technology.
Amazon is the only major retailer using a fluid layout.
Prediction: To optimize conversions and the user experience, merchants are going to have to figure out how to utilize the area provided for a wide variety of user browsers.
- The most important element to focus on is product images.
- Use a variety of CSS styles for different browsers.
- Imagine scaling up and down.
Don’t create a separate mobile sites or niche sites for a website. It is bad for SEO. Besides, eventually people are going to be accessing the web from TVs, appliances (some refrigerators have web browsers now), cars, and tablet-like devises. Build scalability and flexibility into your website design so the content/structure can remain the same indefinitely with only slight design changes.
2 Responses to “3 Website Design & Development Predictions”
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David Says:
June 15th, 2009 at 9:09 amThanks for this important informations,
i would like build up a litte shop like e-commerce ^^
Maybe can I use this Hints ^^ -
Dan VanMullen Says:
December 18th, 2009 at 6:34 pmWhats up Jon!
Hey, I totally agree with Searching and tags for products are the future, rather than navigation. I primarily will only use search unless it’s a site I know well and know where to navigate to find the item.
Keep it up.
