When managing an eCommerce application you should always be thinking about the user experience. Are you sure you are giving your visitors what they want? Is your page easy to navigate and understand? Creating a unique web experience that promotes customer engagement and loyalty is not easy. You must make sure that you’re not making mistakes that are driving consumers away. To help you get better understanding of the common user experience mistakes made by eCommerce pages, we’ve turned to the experts. These are the top frustrating user experience mistakes that you want to avoid with your according to top industry experts.

User Experience Mistakes to Avoid

Using Long Forms

According to Spencer Lanoue, a digital marketer at UserTesting, “Long forms are difficult and frustrating for your users, and if you’re using them for any sort of transaction, it’s going to hurt your conversions”. When creating forms you must think about the customer journey. How hard are you making it for users to complete it? Simplicity is bliss for a user experience. The easier it is for users to complete the journey, the more conversions you will have. When creating forms for an offer make sure the user can finish it easily.

Displaying Important Data on Small Screens

When displaying data-related information you must be certain that it is readable. Trying to see data on a mobile screen can be very frustrating if the site has not been optimized properly. UX Magazine says, “Showing data tables (airline flight timetables, for instance) on small screens is a real problem when the tables are complex and convoluted”. Data and tables must be simple for a user to understand no matter what device they are using. UX Magazine suggests using responsive web design to solve this issue. They also offer other suggestions such as avoiding tables with horizontal scrolling, or using rainbow tables where colors are used for sorting rather than columns.

Auto-Play and AutoSound

Does anyone actually enjoy arriving at a web page that instantly plays loud sounds and videos automatically? Chris Lake, the Vice President of Inbound Marketing at DueDil says that “I’d be willing to bet that there isn’t a single person in the world who appreciates videos and sound that automatically start to play”. Having audio and video can make a web page more engaging but you should leave it up to the user if they want to watch it or not. Having a video or an advertisement immediately playing once the page opens is a huge turn-off and cause a drop in conversion rates.

Uncompressed Images Causing Slow Site Speed

Having too many, or large image files on your application can cause a big delay in loading time. Graphic designer Elliot Richmond claims that having poor loading time due to images is one of the biggest reasons the user interface interferes with their experience. Luckily compressing images is very simple to do and will greatly increase your site speed. There are many free online compression tools that will allow you to easily take care of oversized pictures.

Sign-Ups and Log-Ins on the Same Page

You want to make the customer journey on your eCommerce web page to be as simple as possible. According to Jacob Creech, a Usability Geek at IntuitionHQ, “The quicker and easier I can accomplish something, the more likely I am to do it”. If you make it difficult for the user to understand where they login, or where they sign up, chances are they are not going to do either.

Forcing Users to Sign-Up Without an Offer

Is it fair to ask for user credentials without offering something in return? We say no. Why would users offer up personal information without receiving anything in return? Craig Morrison, a Usability Consultant, and entrepreneur claims that “You’re losing people the moment they hit that sign-up wall. Yes, you probably will get a large percentage of people willing to sign up to try your app, but now you’re building a user base of potentially uninterested users”. Why stand in the way of the user? If you ask users for credentials, it is a best practice to offer something in return. Doing so creates a trust that you will offer value to the user even after they sign up.

You must avoid the mistakes that users and experts alike find to be the most frustrating. The user experience is all about the what the user wants.  Give them what they want and you will create a strong trusting relationship. If you put up roadblocks that aggravate the experience, then you will damage that relationship you worked so hard to build. Keep the user in mind when you create the user experience and you will thrive.

If you want to get a jump on optimizing your site to create a great user experience, try downloading our Free Ebook “How to Optimize Order of Execution” to learn the basics of web performance optimization.