Designs on Success

To quote a former U.S. president, “Oh, the vision thing.” For the e-commerce web site design thing, vision is crucial.

Last year Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne had increasingly worrisome financials top of mind. The financial woes were caused by a significant but troubled 2005 investment in new e-commerce and fulfillment technology. Hastily implemented system upgrades and subsequent troubles caused by them ultimately resulted in the Internet-only retailer posting a net loss in 2006 of $96.8 million on sales of $796.3 million vs. 2005’s net loss of $24.9 million on revenue of $803.8 million.

So Byrne began envisioning ways to turn things around. One of the big solutions he put into play was a major redesign of the retail web site—the 18th largest, according to the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide—slated to launch late summer. To be a success, though, the redesign required a clear and focused vision, he says.

“If you just do step-by-step, incremental evolution, you’re overlooking paradigm changes. You will not get there by incremental A/B testing alone,” Byrne says.

He reached this conclusion based on experience. Byrne finds crafting an overarching vision as the basis for site design and greater teamwork more balanced than the e-retailer’s previous on-the-go changes made by a small group of people. “It seems rational to quickly force changes through, and I’m guilty of that more than anybody,” he says. If he could start afresh with design, he says things would be done the way they’re now being done: first create the vision, then build a technological foundation, one that enables easy testing of design elements and brings the vision to life.

Visual and operational choices made by man are tested by machine to help Byrne and his in-house site design team determine what works best. The retailer uses testing and analytics applications from Omniture Inc., SiteSpect Inc. and Visual Sciences, a subsidiary of WebSideStory Inc. “These tools let us track how shoppers are using our site and what changes are effective or not,” he explains.

Overstock.com’s vision for its yet-to-debut site redesign is based on the vision of the company itself: to be “the world’s coolest outlet store,” one that showcases value and leaves customers satisfied, it says. Come the end of summer, the world will get to judge, based on appearance, just how cool Overstock.com is.

The known universe

There are nearly 109 million web sites in the world, according to Internet research firm Netcraft Ltd. If they were entered in Best in Show, what web site design standards could a judge use to make a decision? Applying the word “standard” to the art and science of site design is as ludicrous as the Miss Universe Pageant: Does tall play well in The Ukraine? Are Australians biased against plastic surgery? And where is Miss Centaurus Galaxy?

According to one judge, though, there actually is one standard that can be used to determine best or worst, right or wrong: the audience. “Site design only is wrong if you choose the wrong solution based on who your customers are,” says Imad Mouline, chief technology officer at Gómez Inc., an Internet performance management consulting firm. “This is because the industry is shifting from a black-and-white way of looking at design toward a view centered on the customer’s web experience.”

Indeed, retailers have to think fast if they want the tiara and the roses. “E-commerce continues to evolve quickly, unlike the other channels, which have been around so long and stabilized. E-commerce is only starting to approach that point, and evolution forces e-retailers to reevaluate design on a regular basis and consider upgrading to new technologies,” says Joseph “Tocky” Lawrence, vice president of consulting and e-commerce services firm F. Curtis Barry & Co. Lawrence specializes in e-commerce site design, platforms and strategy. “But there is no rule for how often a merchant needs to redesign; I typically see e-commerce sites do major overhauls every two or three years.”

Because there are almost 109 million web sites competing for the attention of Internet users, many experts say the number of “suggested guidelines” for design is very small, and the guidelines themselves are understandably broad:

— No more making it up as you go along. A clear, all-encompassing concept is a must.

— Know when to say “when.” Overcrowding is never good, but there is also such a thing as “too much white space.”

— Keep up with the ever-increasing pace of web technology development, for technology profoundly influences design.

— And ultimately, one sure key to winning design is winning over the audience by ensuring its voice is heard.

Go fly a kite

Overstock.com isn’t the only kid who wants to be the coolest e-commerce site on the block. BestKiteboarding.com, which launched in February 2004, not only wants to be cool, it needs to be cool, the company says.

“It’s a cool sport, and we’re trying to show through our design the lifestyle and community of kiters,” says Troy Lawson, chief technology officer at Best Kiteboarding LLC, which annually redesigns its site. “Kiting is like a buddy system—like climbing, you can do it alone but it’s not as easy. This makes for a happy and excited group.”

And, following suit, a happy and exciting e-commerce site. “The thrust of the look and feel is to be extremely dynamic,” Lawson says. “With this year’s home page design we’re doing a little less selling and focusing more on lifestyle. The top three-fourths of the page is community and lifestyle, the bottom fourth is selling.”

To get its point across, the e-retailer is using online video, rotating imagery, vibrant colors and other visual elements. Oh, and pictures of girls. Lots of girls in bikinis. 90% of kiteboarders are men; the customer breakdown skews even further, with 95% of purchases made by men, Lawson says.

Know thy customer doesn’t get much easier. However, Lawson says this year’s design involves more than a shopper can quickly absorb and plans to make things easier on the eyes during the next redesign, scheduled for a fall launch. “We still will keep a lot of information and features on the site, but this year’s is just a little too busy,” he says.

More than I.T.

BestKiteboarding.com’s design team reflects another change in the industry: It’s no longer just I.T. It includes four I.T. staff members and six marketers. They use Adobe Photoshop from Adobe Systems Inc. to create designs and pages. Prior to design, company executives use traffic ranking tools from Alexa Internet Inc. to collect information on kiteboarding and water sports sites and gauge which are most liked by enthusiasts.

“Every year we decide what the vision for the site is: educating, selling, branding, etc. Once we establish that, we gather technology tools, which include NetSuite’s e-commerce and other applications,” Lawson explains. “Then we think about the market—do we want to promote these kites or those boards. And then we determine how and where image, lifestyle and educational content can help. With all that set, we lay them out online, prioritizing them according to the year’s vision, which this year is lifestyle. We give those elements the best real estate, and then everything trickles down from there.”

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Lawson’s sense that BestKiteboarding.com’s current incarnation is “a little too busy” is in line with site design philosophy that seems to be growing more popular: minimalism.

“I’m a big believer in simplicity,” states Craig Smith, founder and managing director of Trinity Insight LLC, an e-commerce consulting and services firm that specializes in interactive site design and site testing and analysis. “You don’t want to cause analysis paralysis, where you give shoppers so many options. Web design should accurately portray your brand and actively tell your value proposition.”

The benefit of minimalism is that not only does it match today’s aesthetic, but it also simplifies the shopping experience. “When you look at successful e-commerce designs like Apple’s, you see it’s difficult to get confused,” says Jason Billingsley, vice president of marketing at Elastic Path Software Inc., an e-commerce platform vendor. “And if you can get across one clear message, it’s far more effective than crowding shoppers with more features and functions.”

Minimalism, though, should be driven by who an e-retailer’s customers are and what they like, cautions Lawrence of F. Curtis Barry & Co. “I’m a big believer in testing, where you have customers take a look before it’s sitewide to help you determine if a design element is doable or not,” he says. “There are some sites that have many, many click-throughs on their pages that go 100 ways to heaven and their shoppers really like that. And there are others that have customers who prefer very simple stuff. Judging what’s best is based on experience, gut instinct and what your customer base is willing to accept.”

Lawson of Best Kiteboarding sees no reason both approaches can’t be used simultaneously. “Make your design accommodate the content that is necessary to display for shoppers,” he advises. “If some pages are busy and most others are not, that is not necessarily a problem.”

Tempting technology

If an e-retailer decides to shed some pounds for a more minimalist look, the decision is put to the test by the tasty treats technology dangles before it. Blind pursuit of popular web technology such as online video, tickers and animated gifs may lead to crowds, or to crowded pages. The other side of the coin: Some of the latest web technology, such as Ajax, enables e-retailers to put more material on a page, much of which isn’t seen until a shopper mouses over a product or button.

Overstock.com’s marketing department’s teams of graphic and web designers and web producers and editors translate the e-retailer’s cool vision into reality via a variety of technology. For the most part the teams use Adobe Creative Suite print, web and mobile publishing software, and a personalization system from Kefta Inc. Typically the teams focus on site search, taxonomy and overall design rather than design details such as additional images or pop-up windows. However, if staff sees new features or technology that add significant value to a shopper’s web experience and decision making and is essentially universally compatible, the merchant will build them into the design, internal marketing staff says.

Overstock.com determines the value of new technology by giving it a test run and monitoring conversion, add-to-cart, bounce and other rates, staff says, then analyzing all gathered data to conclude whether a new design element truly is an improvement over the status quo.

Boy, that looks good

There’s one aspect of the status quo that will never change at men’s fashion cataloger and e-retailer Undergear—the pages and pages of vibrant imagery of attractive, well-built, young men showing off the latest styles in underwear, swimwear, activewear and other apparel. A snug site design is fitting for its key customers—fit, predominantly urban men between 25 and 54 who like to experiment with looks and set trends, says Robin Baskin, vice president of e-commerce at Hanover Direct Inc., which operates six cataloger/e-retailer businesses, including Undergear, International Male and Silhouettes.

Baskin was hired a year ago and immediately tasked to consider a web site redesign. Undergear.com launched in 1999—its first major redesign came in April 2004, its second debuted in early January. The retailer’s sharp focus on distinctive, large pictures of men in a minimum of clothing is a major ingredient in its minimalist site design approach. “Minimalism is important because it enables our customers to easily and quickly accomplish what they want to do,” Baskin says.

To achieve the look, Undergear slipped on some of the latest site design technology, Ajax. “One of the primary goals of the redesign was to allow for rapid and fluid access to site content and create a more seamless user experience that minimizes the constant back-and-forth screen redraws typical of the current online shopping experience. The use of Ajax was a key component to achieving this goal,” says Colton Perry, vice president of creative and technology at NetPlus Marketing Inc., an interactive marketing and design firm Undergear selected for redesign as well as programming and coding assistance.

Ajax, short for asynchronous JavaScript and XML, is site development technology that enables programmers to build interactive applications that exchange small packets of data with servers in a way that does not require a web page to be reloaded every time a shopper takes some action. Among other things, Ajax enabled the retailer to offer a shopping bag that displays and functions over all pages, if a customer desires, without the need to refresh pages. “Shoppers can use the Ajax-enabled bag to keep thumbnail images of products in their carts onscreen to see how those products look with other apparel they may purchase on other pages,” Perry adds.

Undergear, which also added virtual catalogs for shoppers who want their online experience to be more like a catalog experience, already has reaped rewards. Since launching the renovated site two months ago, conversion has increased one percentage point and cart abandonment has decreased 8%, Baskin reports.

Pure commerce, however, was not the only subject Undergear tackled. While crafting the redesign, retailer staff decided adding content to the e-commerce site would not only enhance the look and feel but also help create a tighter bond with customers. “We’re a lifestyle brand, not just underwear and swimwear,” says Robert Grey, director of merchandising, men’s apparel, at Hanover Direct. “So we directly connected lifestyle to new design and features on the site.”

The result: Undergear.com designed a lifestyle section, Living UG Style. The content focuses on the lives of the retailer’s key demographic and includes three distinct areas: Fashion Insider, with information and insights from fashion experts on the latest trends; Urban Hot, with reviews and guides for major U.S. cities; and A Model Life, with profiles of some of Undergear’s myriad male models. “We felt we really could define the brand via content. It’s very much a part of the new face of Undergear,” Baskin says. “It’s a way our customer can ‘own’ part of the site by sharing their opinions with others in the community.”

What do they want?

Undergear also wanted customers to share their opinions about the previous incarnation of the e-commerce site prior to the redesign to ensure customer satisfaction with the then yet-to-be-created new version. In addition to having a site design vision, keeping minimalism in mind and staying on top of web design technology developments, eliciting consumers’ views is an action highly recommended by industry experts.

E-retailers must understand customer feedback is critical, says Lawrence of F. Curtis Barry & Co. “Did a design change deliver the outcome you expected?” he asks. “Find out through tools like pop-up surveys at the end or in the middle of shopping sessions. Display a click-on that says we’ve just redesigned the site and please let us know what you think. And offer an incentive for feedback, like a discount on the shopper’s next order.”

Taking the proactive approach, Undergear surveyed via e-mail Internet customers who had made purchases in the last 60 days. “The surveys provided us with information on demographics, customer experience and customer satisfaction,” Baskin says. “We needed to evolve, we needed to make the site much more modern to fit the way we view our customers. This was an immediate need that laid the groundwork for the redesign. We took into account what the customers wanted and how they enjoy shopping and combined that with our business goals to increase conversion and average order value and reduce cart abandonment.”

The previous version of the site was very neutral in its appearance and did not have functionality that enhanced the shopper experience, Baskin adds. “The new site, like the fashion, is more stylish and edgy,” she says. “Our customers typically are body-conscious and take pride in their appearance—we wanted the site design to reflect this. So we went darker and grittier, not neutral like before.”

The underlying design philosophy at Undergear might serve as a motto for any retailers redesigning a site. Says Baskin: “We wanted the site to have a personality, so when you hit the home page you know what it’s all about.”

bill@verticalwebmedia.com

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