Best Products at Cheaper Prices

E-commerce websites can be quite funny across different countries. eBay website for India displays Sort feature for the time, price and distance. Additional options like Price: lowest first, Price: highest first offer more and better choices to users.

Let's look at the website for France. The Sort feature doesn't cover many options available for India.

Where is Low to High filter? Do french people don't like cheap stuff? Was this option removed based on data from usage analytics? If analytics was used to remove the option, then it is a good thing. But if the sort filters team across countries didn't talk to each other and landed up in this difference, it is not a good thing.

Let's face it. We all like stuff that costs cheaper. We want the best products, but at cheaper prices. This is partly the reason why the e-Commerce price wars never seem to end.

While it is good to customize sort filters based on country, e-commerce websites must keep in mind that buying patterns may change from country to country, but buying mindset remains the same"

Best Products at Cheaper Prices.

How does your website fare in different countries?

Drop the Dropdowns

An online e-commerce application wanted to grant freedom of choice to its customers for online payment. This is how the ocean of options looked like, for a netbanking shopper:

Do customers admire such a freedom of choice? I am afraid, not.

If you are a regular online shopper and use netbanking as a payment option, there is a high probability that you have 3-5 accounts (perhaps?) to pay from. You wouldn't have 40+ online bank accounts with 40+ banks as depicted in the dropdown.

Dropdowns are the most mis-used UI components in the history of software products, in the name of giving freedom and control for users. 

An ideal way to handle this situation is to remember the top 3-5 banks the user frequently uses and just show them, while offering the flexibility to modify existing list. Some of you may cry about too many clicks or taps, but what use is such a huge page where you have to spend few minutes to locate your bank name?

Too much of a choice is not a good choice.

What do your customers choose from?

Do Not Use Lift In Event of Fire

Helpful messages are helpful, especially when they show up in helpless situations. You are stuck in a lift. There is a fire accident and then you see this signage inside the lift. The signage says, Do not use lift in event of fire. It's a decent message. Fair enough.

BUT...

What use is this signage for someone inside the lift? What can the person do to get out of the lift safely? Can he save himself, solely based on the advice in this signage? 

Of course, not!

Forgiving designs note that people might be caught in unwarranted situations and advise accordingly.

How forgiving are your designs?