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Is e-commerce thwarted by usability
issues?
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Even with knowledge about e-commerce, novice web-users remain shy about
e-shopping. Why? It may be "usability problems" that hold users
back. Let's contrast e-commerce usage among experts versus novices in
one important survey.
The Spring, 1998 GVU 9th WWW User Survey covered over 10,000 US (84%),
European (6%), Canadian (5%), and Oceania (2%) self-selected web users.
New users with less than one year on the internet constituted 18% (novices);
45% used the internet for 1 to 3 years; 37% had 4 or more years experience
(experts). Generally, users were fairly experienced: 88% used the web
daily and 26% used it more than 20 hours per week. Connections were adequate:
87% used
28Kb/sec or faster. Of those who made purchases on the Web, 33% spent
between $100 and $500; 30% spent over $500.
Buyer reluctance – GVU reports that 60% used the Web to seek product
purchase information. However, in most product categories, less than 40%
made a purchase in the last six months. Respondents gave these three top
reasons for abandoning a Web site during e-shopping:
- Could not find the item: 56% - personal shopping (62% - professional
shopping)
- Site disorganized or confusing: 54% (61%)
- Pages downloaded too slowly: 53% (60%)
These three reasons clearly reflect usability problems.
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Experience counts – but novices
shop less than expected
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During the 6 months between the 8th and 9th GVU survey, users collectively
ordered more frequently – probably because of more experience as
well as increased product offerings and advertising. After finding the
item, users placed an order...
- most of the time (increased from ~14% (8th survey) to 27% of respondents
(9th survey))
- half the time (increased from 12% to 19%)
- never (reduced from 27% to 13%)
Among Web users who find the item they want, 43% of expert respondents
order all or most of the time, while only 26% of the novices do. Note
that both experts and novices had found the item they wanted, but novices
order less. This may reflect a lack of ease-of-use. Experience compensates
for low usability.
Given a Web context, optimal usability design will reduce the need for
experience and expertise. In contrast, the current survey shows a considerable
range of usage frequency among levels of user experience. 80% of experts
indicated they used information searches in quest of all or most of their
professional purchases, while 65% of intermediate users did so, and only
50% of novices used such searches. With better usability, we should see
greater use of information searches among novices and intermediates. Experts
may also increase their usage.
Collective experience also counts in the category of "time spent
searching." From the 8th to the 9th survey, about 5% of users moved
from the 5-15 minute search category to the less-than-5-minutes category.
However, we see that the six months between surveys accelerated expert
performance better than novice performance. More experts than novices
moved to the under-5-minutes category, implying that interface design
has not reduced learning effort for novices.
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Strong demand for e-commerce
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The same GVU report offers this insight into the perceived value of Web-based
shopping across all levels of user experience. Respondents gave these
motivations for personal shopping of products and services. Most categories
offer usability design challenges above and beyond just providing the
functions.
- Get detailed information on products: 87% - personal shopping (92%
- professional shopping)
- Make price comparison: 80% (83%)
- Learn availability of products and services: 78% (79%)
- Convenience: 78% (76%)
- No pressure from sales person: 66% (58%)
- Saving time: 64% (62%)
- Get vendor information: 61% (75%)
- Get reviews and expert recommendations: 31% (43%)
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