Ecommerce is driven by consumer intent and buying behaviors. An online merchant must present their product or service in an environment that is intuitive, familiar, trusted, motivating and seamless.
A website’s primary objective must be to eliminate the distance that exists between the user and the brand, including economic, cognitive, physiological, emotional, awareness and significance.
Successfully reducing ‘gaps’ requires optimizing key aspects of an application, such as:
- Navigation and hierarchy
- Process flows
- Interface design
- Orientation structure
- Mobile configurations
- Visual experience
- Content merit and arrangement
- Data display and acceleration
- Personalized components
Understanding intention starts with identifying the different motivators:
- Purchase – price, discount, incentives, shipping fees
- Information – seeking to answer ‘who, what, when, where, how’
- Location – nearest to the user, directions, maps and routes
- Experience – desire to be inspired, enlightened or entertained
- Explicit – based on one or more specific keywords
The architecture of a website will dictate how well customer engagement and actions are achieved. Usability and findability require blending creative and compelling experiences with the science of online interaction behavior.
For those building the user interface, make it a priority to be data-informed, using business intelligence to identify consumer drivers. And design first for platform structure, data taxonomy, and navigation before presentation and context.