Shop.CCS.com product sorting options improve usability
If you're looking for some great product sorting options to add to your e-commerce site functionality, check out Shop.CCS.com. The visitor can "sort by" and "filter by" a number of very useful options, including best seller, what's new, alphabetical, low price, and high price.
It's hard, though, for the first-time visitor to get past the busy main menu system. Special offers and utility-type menu choices are inter-mingled with e-commerce main menu choices stretching over 3 to 4 rows of real estate. And the use of numerous type treatments makes it look all the more jumbled.
On shop.CCS.com, the top menu system is way too busy, combining regular navigation with promotional offers. But the product pages feature great tools for learning more.
Pros:
- Search box is visible in the upper right corner
- Shopping cart displays a running total
- You can "filter by" and "sort by" many options within the product pages
- All graphics are clickable
- Back order or in stock note appears if you mouse-over a size
- You can zoom for a larger view
- Description, Sizing, Reviews, and Q&A are available right on each product page
- Left column sub-menus easy to use
- Online catalog has easy "previous page" and "next page" navigation and handy "View all pages" option to jump to a particular page
- Left menu title tells you what category you're in, and sub-category indicated by blue band
Cons:
- Top of site very busy with 3-4 lines of menu options
- Regular navigation menu combined with promotional offers
- Rotating screens distracting on home page
- To change the color of an item, you have to click on the color choice and then mouse over the photo to see just a portion of the product in that color
- Once you select Zoom, you're unsure of how to get back to the main page, as it's unlikely you'll notice the miniscule "close" in lower right
Shop.CCS.com USABILITY SCORE (scale of 1 to 10, where 10 is Fabulous, 1 is Horrendous)
Easy-to-use Main Menu 3
Know-where-you-are Sub-Menus 9
Utility menu 4
Search function 9
Help functions 8
Views of different versions of item 3
Navigation within product area 10
Completeness of product information provided 10
In-stock/out-of-stock situation 10
Clickable graphicsphotos 4
Ability to enlarge product shots 4
Options for sorting products 10
Online catalog navigation 10
Running shopping cart total on screen 10
Total Score: 104/140 = 7
What do you think about shop.ccs.com? Did you notice anything that we missed?
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