Joe Natori said, “User Experience Team of One, 2nd Edition” is a groundbreaking book that helps small e-commerce businesses improve customer experience by “doing more with less.”
When I asked founder Natori, Deliver a great UX The author, a user experience consultant with 30 years of experience, shares what has changed in the 10 years since the book’s acclaimed first edition.
Joe Natori: A lot is changing not just in UX but across business. Customer expectations are changing across the web. The way we buy products is also changing fundamentally. Any business needs to constantly upgrade to meet the wants, needs, and expectations of its customers. All of this has to do with user experience. If you’re not getting the results you expected, there’s a reason. You need to find out why.
Joe Natori
In this second edition, we tackle the important questions: What do people want? Why do they want it? What should happen here? How do we determine what will make a difference?
Jean Gazis: How does the merchant Stay up to date In the midst of constant change?
Nutley: In the end, it all comes down to your audience’s expectations. People want to buy your products in a certain way. You can’t control that. If your competitors are already there, you need to get there yesterday. The methods in this book will help you do that much faster than traditional UX processes.
The time you have available to work will determine what you do. If you can spare a day to talk to customers, do so. But you need to build features. You need to design things that can be easily rolled back. Roll them out, test them, monitor them. If you realize it was a bad decision, quickly revert back to the way it was.
Ghazis: Another trade-off is research up front and test later.
Nutley: It’s a situational thing. Sometimes an investigation isn’t necessary — for example, a change that is low risk, can be done quickly, and doesn’t risk alienating customers — so just roll it out and see what happens.
Big changes like adding another step to your checkout flow and requiring shoppers to verify their information or log in before purchasing are a different story — this is risky and could stop sales, so research it up front — but don’t spend a lot of time doing so.
I tell my team to do whatever they can. If you only have one day, one day is enough. Doing something is always better than nothing. Some of the methods in this book are intended for internal use. If your sellers don’t have time to do research, that’s okay. Try to walk them through the process from the customer’s perspective.
Ghazis: How do you measure the value of UX in e-commerce?
Nutley: There’s no excuse not to implement basic analytics. It’s super easy – just add one line of code to every page. Merchants just need to understand what they want to measure and the tools to do it.
It’s easy to assume that everyone knows what questions to ask. I don’t think that’s the case. In the book We try to navigate the process: “What questions do I ask? Where do I start? How do I find these things?” The key is to think before you make a decision. Think about what’s worth doing and what to avoid. Believe it or not, I’ve seen countless ecommerce sites mess up their checkout.
Ghazis: What aspects of UX are important for e-commerce?
User Experience Team of One, 2nd Edition
Nutley: Merchants need to eliminate any friction. There are shoppers who can’t wait to buy. They pull out their wallets and think, “If I see this, I’m going to buy it.” Your content needs to reflect, “Here’s what’s in it for you.”
It’s not enough to just make a claim – you need to show people what they’re getting, so your e-commerce site’s UX needs to prove why your product is valuable. Right nowMake sure you clearly answer the questions: “Why is this worth paying for? Why is this worth my time? How will this help or be valuable to me?”
That’s what I call friction. The checkout process. There is friction Friction occurs when it goes against traditional expectations: what happens first, what happens next, how much information you’re asking for, when you’re asking it. Any time there’s something unexpected involved at checkout, there’s friction. Shoppers’ brains are used to patterns. It’s a habit and a reflex. The moment something breaks that pattern, it’s a moment of doubt.
Usability is what distinguishes ecommerce sites. How easy is it for people to do business with you? Not investing time and money into user experience is the most short-sighted thing I can think of.
