Summary

The report contains a total of 28 design guidelines, based on usability testing of 20 big e-commerce sites with 64 users. When we analyzed 20 other big sites we found that the average site complied with 40% of these guidelines. In other words, the category pages on these big sites violated 17 of the design guidelines on average. Smaller sites typically have even more usability mistakes on their category pages.

52 pages. Richly illustrated with 38 color screenshots from many different websites, showing usability problems we found in our testing as well as examples of highly-usable category pages.

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This document is a part of Nielsen Norman Group's series of design guidelines for e-commerce user experience.
 

Table of Contents

1. Executive Summary
2. Sites We Tested
3. Store Home Pages
   • 7 design guidelines
4. Classification Schemes
   • 5 design guidelines
5. Product Listings Pages
   • 8 design guidelines
6. Images on Category Pages
   • 2 design guidelines
7. Winnowing
   • 3 design guidelines
8. Product Comparisons
   • 3 design guidelines
9. Conclusion
10. Summary of Recommendations for Designers

Who Should Read This Report?

Running a similar usability study yourself to collect comparative design lessons from a large number of websites around the world would cost thousands more than the cost of these reports, not to mention months of effort by your team of experienced usability professionals.

52 pages PDF format: download your copy right now (from eSellerate) Single-user license: $45 Site license: $99 (allows you to place on your intranet and make unlimited copies within your company)