Improve your Ecommerce Product Page with this Review
UX audits, or UX reviews are a great way to critically evaluate your website and understand how well or poorly it’s performing.
On ecommerce websites, the majority of users will view at least one PDP (product detail page) during their visit to your site, and it’s one of, if not the main place, where they’ll decide to buy the product. As such, it’s crucial that you create an amazing experience for your users.
As the digital landscape is constantly evolving and user needs change, it’s likely that the original design and layout of your ecommerce PDP is now outdated and don’t meet the expectations of your users, resulting in a poor conversion rate.
Using a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods, you can really understand what’s going on on your product page, why and where it isn’t performing well, and draw insights to identify opportunities for improvement.
What does a UX Review look like?
To get the most out of a UX review, it’s important to use a combination of research methods, tools, and metrics to find out what is and isn’t working.
Quantitative Methods
- Hotjar
- Google Analytics data
Qualitative Methods
- User interviews
- Heuristic analysis
When conducting a UX review, it’s good to get as much context, information and data as possible to ensure your insights are strong and can be backed up.
Hotjar
We love hotjar, because it takes the guesswork out of user behaviour. Rather than making assumptions about what users are doing and how they interact with your PDP, you can observe their visits and see patterns in behaviour through screen recordings.
Click and move maps highlight areas of high interaction, whilst scroll maps show how much of the page is getting seen.
Hotjar helped Oluwatobi Akindunjoye understand that focusing on reducing bounce rate isn’t always the right approach. Instead of asking users why they left the site, he used Hotjar polls to find out why users visited in the first place.
With this information, you can understand why users are behaving in a certain way, and ensure that your PDP meets their needs.
Google Analytics
GA4 (the latest version of Google Analytics) is a great free tool for capturing in-depth data about the performance of your site. Whilst it’s a free tool, it lets you gather a huge range of information, from ecommerce tracking to monitoring custom events and user interactions.
Google Analytics is also a great starting point to help you find out the ‘What?’. You can find out Add to Basket Rate, Visits to PDPs, bounce rate, and track other custom interactions to get a solid base of data for your UX review.
It may also flag specific products that get lots of visits, but few purchases, highlighting where the work needs to be done.
Heuristic Analysis
You can uncover some great opportunities for improvement and quick wins on your PDP designs by conducting a Heuristic Analysis.
Heuristics are quick ways to approach problem-solving to reach an immediate, but sufficient short-term goal or approximation.
At Factory Pattern when conducting a UX review for an ecommerce PDP, we analyse the page and record any heuristic problems.
The Nielsen Norman usability heuristics include 10 principles that should be adhered to in order to create great user experiences including:
- Visibility of system status – does you consistently keep users informed about the status of the website and quickly give feedback based on user interactions
- User freedom – always give users a clear emergency exit in the event that they don’t want to complete an action
- Aesthetic and minimalist design – extra content on an interface contributes to decision fatigue and fights for the users attention. Whilst your design doesn’t need to be boring, you should make sure that you focus on including the most important information to make it as smooth and easy for users to achieve their main goals
Whilst you interact and use the website, observe whether it adheres to the heuristics you’ve identified. If not, then you can use those observations as a checklist to work through to make sure your ecommerce website offers a great user experience.
User interviews
Including user interviews in your UX review is a fantastic way to improve your Product Detail page.
When you talk directly to users, you can uncover major and minor issues, and get unbiased, honest feedback from the people who interact with your site.
Whilst some clients may think that user interviews are too costly, it would be more expensive to design something no one needs or wants.
Plus, user interviews give you unbiased insights that you can’t get from internal assessments.
So, invest in understanding your users, and you’ll create a more user-friendly and effective product detail page.
User interviews not only provide valuable feedback but also foster a customer-centric approach.
By involving your users in the improvement process early on, you show that you care about their needs and opinions. This builds trust, increases customer satisfaction, and gives you a competitive edge.
When you actively listen to your users and make changes based on their input, you’re more likely to create a product detail page that resonates with your audience.
So, don’t underestimate the power of user interviews in shaping a successful user experience.
Enhance Your Product Detail Page with a Comprehensive UX Review
In summary, a UX review involving a combination of research methods and tools helps identify areas for improvement on your ecommerce product page.
By understanding user behaviour, gathering feedback, and fostering a customer-centric approach, you can create a more user-friendly and effective product detail page that meets the expectations of your users.