
The $300 Million Button - cynusx
http://www.uie.com/articles/three_hund_million_button/
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rkalla
The original reasoning that went into the design of the first form is (I
think) the classic perspective taken from someone that has never had to use
their own product.

"Why wouldn't someone want to create an account? Ship it!"

Then as soon as you are in a rush, shopping for some tents online for a
camping trip (something you rarely do) and REI is forcing you to create an
account just to order the clearance tents you found, you want to yell at
somebody.

I think this story is valuable if for no other reason to make sites realize
how much of a road block registration is.

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jobu
Agreed. Another roadblock I hate is requiring me to enter my full name and
address before they give tax & shipping info. A simple zip code field &
calculate price button should not be that hard.

Does anybody publish some decent design guidelines for online shopping sites?
So many sites try to follow Amazon without realizing Amazon can get away with
terrible design choices because they are so massive.

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jholman
And speaking of "a simple zip code field"...

If you're going to require a zip code to ship, because you only ship to the
US, wouldn't it be nice if you said so up-front, so I could avoid wasting half
an hour comparing your totally effing useless-to-me products to retailers that
actually want to sell to me?

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rokhayakebe
I actually LOVE LOVE website that let you shop as a guest. No, I do not want
to sign up.

~~~
ChuckFrank
Brilliant. I'm amazed that more sites don't let you do this.

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AndrewWarner
Why don't ecommerce sites just create an account for users on the fly? Why do
they require the extra step?

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staktrace
That doesn't help the customers who come back later for a second purchase and
then have to fumble to find their account info.

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notatoad
it would help, because users who don't want to be bothered can just create a
new account on the fly.

you're already collecting all the information necessary to create an account
when somebody completes a purcase, so just make an account for them. include a
temporary account password on the email receipt, with a message telling users
they can use that pw to log in to the site to check the status of the order.
once a week, run a cron to clean up all the accounts of people whose orders
have completed and haven't changed the password.

~~~
staktrace
That's better, but I still don't like it because you're forcing a relationship
upon the user, regardless of whether or not they want one.

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andrewpi
Any idea what site this article refers to?

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spking
It's Amazon.com.

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reitzensteinm
Apparently not:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=434850>

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sjs
Well then Best Buy has lapsed. Canadian site requires you to register in order
to check out.

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alohahacker
I know from a couple months ago hearing the founder of omniture Josh James
talk about changing a button and color to a homepage. He said it caused his
client to grow significantly and caused sales to go up 15-20% almost overnight
creating tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.

The website they helped fix was still in its beginning years. Their client was
ebay. I wouldn't be suprised if this was the website he's talking about.

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orky56
I love this article because it nicely allows C-level execs to understand the
ROI of usability and design. So often at larger companies, these areas lack
budgets purely for the fact that it is so hard to quantify the returns i.e.
with just general "positive" user experience. Here we can see a pure a
before/after A/B type situation that had far-reaching consequences.

~~~
bluedanieru
"But my organization is different because..."

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killerswan
I have seen lots of companies add that button, and I have never seen a company
remove it!

