Poorly designed product detail pages

Hi Dan:

Good one to be reviewing :)

A few that come to mind:

* Poor quality product photos
* Product specifications that are too technical and don't make sense
to the consumer (as an example, this is true of many mobile phone
specifications)
* Lack of contextual information like : related products, where to
buy, contacting sales for further information, downloading a PDF etc
* Inability to filter the search for a specific product i.e. not
letting technology do the hard work for the user
* Inability to make product comparisons
* Hard to find and see the price
* Lack of product reviews or ratings
* Small fonts (hard to read)

Often product information is a reflection of how product specs are
written before they are published to the web site. So if these are
not designed to reflect user needs in the first place or are
inconsistent with other channel presentations - it makes it harder to
digest and lead to a sale. Banking and Telcos are 2 example
industries where product & services can be difficult to understand in
the first place (before being published to web)

rgds,

Daniel Szuc
Principal Usability Consultant
www.apogeehk.com
T: +852 2581 2166
F: +852 2833 2961
"Usability in Asia"

The Usability Kit - www.theusabilitykit.com

On 31/12/2007, at 11:27 PM, Dan wrote:

> http://www.thedough.co.uk/blog
>
>
> I have recently been reviewing the product information pages of a
> number of
> different sites and come up with a list of themes which I consider
> problematic to the design. I have blogged these themes here
> http://www.thedough.co.uk/blog and thought that you guys maybe
> interested.
>
> Can anyone think of any other pitfalls of the Product Detail/
> Information
> page, as I am currently working on one now ;-)
>
> Cheers
>
> Dan
> http://www.thedough.co.uk/blog
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These are all good responses, but I'd take a step back and think about
what information your audience needs to be motivated to buy something
in the first place. Put as much of this on the results page - not the
detail page - as possible. It's easy to focus too much on the details
page without realizing you might be losing sales simply by making the
user go there in the first place.

Go to UIE.com and do a search for pogo sticking for a bunch of good
articles on this topic.

Jeff