User Interface or the UI is an important aspect in the eCommerce space. It speaks about the design and performance of your website and has a major role to play in attracting more visitors and improving user experience.
What is the User Interface? Which things contribute to a perfect eCommerce UI design? What are eCommerce UI best practices? How do I improve the UI of my website? If you have these sorts of questions running through your mind, I will try to make sure that you have a clear answer to them by the time you reach the end of this post.
What is eCommerce UI?
In simple terms, the User Interface, denoted by UI, is the visual appearance of a website or the mobile app. It illustrates how the information is displayed to the users and how they interact with it.
The process of creating interfaces to enhance usability is what we call as eCommerce UI design. And this is what the eCommerce UI designers do. They keep the focus on the looks and style and ensure that the user experience (UX) is not compromised.
UI and UX are correlated. As I said, the primary purpose of a great UI is to improve the user experience so better the UI, better the UX.
When it comes to eCommerce UI, it’s all about providing visitors with a user-friendly layout, intuitive navigation bar, optimized product pages and checkout page, or whatever it may require to offer them a pleasant online shopping experience.
eCommerce UI Best Practices
The design of your web pages is an invaluable asset to improve your website’s performance and has a significant impact on eCommerce conversions. An appealing UI design is the first step towards achieving higher sales.
I mean you cannot turn a user into a customer straight away. No user will purchase in the very first time he or she enters your website. Initially, the UI will play the part and it will be the first thing that will draw their attention. How your website behaves, how easy it is to navigate, how efficient it is, these things will decide their interest towards your website or brand.
When the UI gets better, customer satisfaction highly increases. Let’s take a look at the 5 key elements that will help you achieve a perfect eCommerce UI design.
1. Site Navigation
The first thing to consider when you are thinking of a better user interface is to offer easy navigation throughout your website. No matter at which page the user is present, there should not be any hindrance while browsing through different web pages. He/she should be able to reach the desired page without any hassle. The menu bar should function properly will all the options well organized.
Besides, you should have a clean and appealing navigation bar with your important categories and an easy to spot search bar. Include sub-categories in the drop-down list and they should be displayed automatically as soon as the cursor hovers over the category.
2. Informative Home Page
The home page of a website is probably the most looked area for an eCommerce UI designer. It is the first thing that will be displayed to the users when they land on your website. This can either create curiosity about your brand or make them bounce off instantly.
Your home page should immediately highlight what your brand is about. It should highlight the services that you provide, business goals, your brand partners, testimonials, link to social media channels, your best sellers, etc.
3. Make Your Product Pages Stand Out
A well-designed product page highly attracts users. If it looks amazing, it will not only remove uncertainties regarding the product but will create higher chances of the user making a purchase.
How to improve the UI of your product pages?
First of all, it should not be cluttered. Secondly, you should enable the pinch-in and pinch-out functionality to zoom in and zoom out the product images, respectively. Alongside, you should add product videos, banners, size chart and a product reviews section. Displaying product images in carousel mode is also an ideal option.
4. Call-To-Action
E-commerce websites have different call-to-action button at different web pages, for example, “Add to Cart” on the product page, “Buy Now” or “Place Order” on the checkout page. The CTAs should be persuasive. They should encourage users to take action. The font and the color of the CTA button matter a lot from the user interface point of view.
5. User-Friendly Checkout
The checkout page is arguably the most important page on an eCommerce website. If this isn’t designed well, this will hamper the checkout experience of the users and will eventually lead to cart abandonment.
Try making the checkout process as simplified as you can. Reduce the number of steps. You can also go for One Page Checkout.
Final Thoughts
A great UI design not only ensures a good user experience but also reduces the bounce rate to a significant level. People spend more time on your website, they interact more with your products which ultimately builds customer loyalty.
What are your thoughts on a perfect eCommerce UI design?
