
3 UX Fails in the Gilt Groupe Checkout - jason_shah
http://blog.jasonshah.org/post/18497704200/3-ux-fails-in-the-gilt-groupe-checkout
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kscaldef
As one of the people involved in designing the system in question, I'd like to
say two things:

1) The author describes the experience of the first-time customer who has
never entered a shipping address or credit card. The Gilt checkout experience
is optimized for users to be able to checkout as quickly as possible. What he
calls "the last step" is actually the first thing a repeat customer sees.

2) Most of what he's complaining about are intentional choices based on A/B
testing.

~~~
gavingmiller
Hey kscaldef - some observations I had from my time on the site:

When I visited the site (had never heard of it before) I had an overlay that
asked for my email in order to view the site. I was unable to close it - tried
hitting escape, looked for a close button, etc. I refreshed and navigated to 3
different pages using the top nav before the site removed the overlay.

Now when I'm on the site (men's clothing) when I try to click something in
your main nav (like Baby&Kids) I get another sign up overlay.

Maybe I'm not your target demographic, but your site actively prevents me from
browsing your products.

~~~
jason_shah
My guess is that this is Gilt's model. To them the cost of users like you
navigating away (perhaps without entering your email address) is smaller than
the benefit they get from getting people who wouldn't otherwise enter their
email addresses to do so.

It's a business tactic that arguably prioritizes conversions and bottom line
over general user experience. Commonly done but dubious when it comes to
whether it is good for the end user.

