New cart feedback
NWMtnGuy
Registered Users Posts: 88 Big grins
Hi SmugTeam,
So far I really like the new cart. Nice job! I have been playing around with it this morning and it seems pretty intuitive except for one thing. I'm curious to see if anyone else has run into the same issue.
When viewing the cart it's very easy to see the crop rectangle on top of the photos. In fact, it's so easy to see the crop rectangle that my natural reaction when I wanted to adjust the crop was to click on the picture, not on the "adjust" button to the right. Unfortunately, clicking on the photo takes you out of the shopping cart and back to the photo in the original gallery. In a quick and dirty test I had a couple of people sit in front of my computer and asked them to adjust the crop and they both did the same thing. They eventually figured it out, but in both cases their first reaction was to click on the photo with the visible crop frame.
Has anyone else run into this? My three-person study is admittedly unscientific and represents a small sample size, but all of us had seemed to have the same intuitive reaction. Maybe clicking on the photo should take you to the crop-adjust window. Any thoughts?
Dale
crop_window.jpg
So far I really like the new cart. Nice job! I have been playing around with it this morning and it seems pretty intuitive except for one thing. I'm curious to see if anyone else has run into the same issue.
When viewing the cart it's very easy to see the crop rectangle on top of the photos. In fact, it's so easy to see the crop rectangle that my natural reaction when I wanted to adjust the crop was to click on the picture, not on the "adjust" button to the right. Unfortunately, clicking on the photo takes you out of the shopping cart and back to the photo in the original gallery. In a quick and dirty test I had a couple of people sit in front of my computer and asked them to adjust the crop and they both did the same thing. They eventually figured it out, but in both cases their first reaction was to click on the photo with the visible crop frame.
Has anyone else run into this? My three-person study is admittedly unscientific and represents a small sample size, but all of us had seemed to have the same intuitive reaction. Maybe clicking on the photo should take you to the crop-adjust window. Any thoughts?
Dale
crop_window.jpg
0
Comments
My test was less scientific, (Sample size = 1) but I did the same thing. This is not a new behavior for these carts. Clicking on the photo always takes you back to the gallery. I find myself making that mistake a lot, and always using the back button to get back to the shopping cart.
If they changed it so that the photo linked to the crop tool, they would need to add a separate link to get back to the photo in the gallery. (and each photo would need its own link becuase I do, on occasion, place a single order from multiple galleries)
The "Consider cropping for a better fit. Why?" is fine, but I would like the "Why" link to open in a new window instead of the same window. (I don't want them leaving the shopping cart)
What I would like even more would be for it to open a popup box that gave an abbreviated summary of the info that it currently links to.
Try buying something.
EDIT - OK....never mind. Misunderstanding
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I can see the logic here, but I have to admit that my initial reaction is still to click on the photo to adjust the crop. Interestingly, that was never my reaction with the old cart even though the behavior between the old/new cart is technically unchanged. I think it's because in the new cart the crop frame on the photo really looks like an obvious crop frame, unlike the old one.
It's not a showstopper, though I suspect a lot of people will make the same assumption when navigating the cart.
Dale
Yeah, I would much rather have them get coupons going.
The problem is, it's mixed so far. Some people click on the photo to go back, especially when it's a photo without cropping frames because it doesn't need cropping.
And how do we take them back to the gallery? We'd have to add another link and don't have space for it, so we'd have to make some.
(The space that appears to be blank is reserved because we're gonna add options for the print there, like framing, mounting, spray coatings, etc.)
Interesting. I had a customer ask me today, if there was a website where they could my photos printed, framed and delivered all in one shot. This is so they could send something to Grandma in a different state.
Is this framing thing going to happen anytime soon, or should I find an alternative for them in the meantime?
Hmmmm... I think I will start exploring alternatives.
We're very interested in adding various mounting and framing options and working hard on it, but the first few options we offer are gonna be pretty simple.
My only feedback at this time is when you click on "bulk options" suddenly a list of ALL the smugmug products is shoved* in my customers face!!
After I've carefully decided what products I offer (currently based somewhat on a 2x3 aspect ratio - but it's clearly MY choice via MY criteria) thru my site via the items I put pricing on -this is unacceptable!
While I'm on my soapbox this would be a great time to CHANGE the"Prints & Gifts" link at the bottom of the cart pages from "catalog.mg" (with ALL the at cost pricing displayed!! No good reason for this to ever appear connected to a pro's site ) to the "catalog2.mg" pagethat DOESN"T show any prices just items...
Thats it for now..
rich56k
(*used for dramatic effect, and lack of a better word)
Member: ASMP; EP; NPPA; CPS
HOWEVER, understand that if a customer has a mixed pro cart, some items that you do not offer may show up in the bulk product picker because the other pro does.
Cool!! (he proclaims while holding breath)
As for the however - in my case pretty unlikely so it's still cool!
Thanks Lee!
I know my last request isn't new with this cart (the "with prices" catalog page showing instead of the "non-prices" version) it seems like now could be good time to change the link - shouldn't be that involved should it ? - (from a coding idiot's perspective!) after the other tweeks are in place of course...
Member: ASMP; EP; NPPA; CPS
so why have the footer "catalog.mg" link with the default prices. Kinda
redundant (price wise that is) and in a pro's case misleading. So use
the "catalog2.mg" link in the cart footers.
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When I first played with the new cart, the exact same thing happened to me. I saw the cool looking crop picture of my image and wanted to adjust the crop so I clicked on it and woah, now I'm no longer in the cart. I think one of the cardinal rules in a shopping cart is to make sure the user doesn't leave the cart (thus making it less likely they will complete the sale) unless they really want to leave. This certainly misses that rule.
I agree with the suggestion that clicking on the crop image should take you to the adjust crop UI. Nobody will be surprised by that and it will keep you in the shopping experience.
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John,
On my iMac G5 running safari 3.1.1; FF 2.0 both are fine - even tried adding items,etc
Anybody else??
rich
Member: ASMP; EP; NPPA; CPS
In IE7 and Safari Windows, it works fine. I just see this problem in FF 2.0.0.14 on Windows Vista, even when text is set to the "normal" zoom.
FYI, in case this is a clue, the problem gets worse or better if I zoom text to be larger or smaller. Some of the cart screens are pretty ugly if you run with text at a different size than default.
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Suggestions.
Change print size shows table with prices. On bulk change it should also show prices as long as they are the same for all images. If not, show something like 'price varies'
Agree that why? should lead to a popup and not to a redirect
Agree that clicking on the image should lead to crop page. Maybe clicking on the photographer´s name could lead to the gallery, it could even say 'Retrn to So and So´s gallery'
Almost all labs in Brazil offer the option of leaving margins on prints. They look great on 5x7 and larger. I´d love to see the option.
I think buttons are still a bit bulky and could be smaller.
Robert
Does it always take them to the cropping tool? What if they've selected no crop and two white strips are showing?
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Placing a new button is a big design decision because there isn't room for one now. I'm not saying we wouldn't or shouldn't, but I don't think we should take it lightly because you're putting another element on the page. You have to figure out how to make room for it, and then it competes for your attention with other stuff like how to change quantities or product type.
I may misunderstand John because my experience is standard behavior for carts is to click on the product to go back to the product page where you found it. Amazon, Costco, Walmart all do it that way, same as us. In my life at an online merchant, we did as all merchants do today: get you to keep shopping and pile more in your cart before proceeding to pages with shipping info, etc.
WalMart and Amazon are studies in trying to tempt you to fetch more for your cart before clicking the proceed to checkout button:
If we were to break from that behavior, it seems to me we'd have to do some user testing to see if your moms really expect to face a cropping tool when they take the action they take at Amazon to keep shopping.
The confusing part is probably that we show croplines and Amazon doesn't have to. But I dunno what percentage of photos will be like that because many pros like to crop to the image sizes they'll be selling. 50%?
Bottom line, cart decision comes way too early and deflects away from selecting photos.
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This is a good point. It might be nice if the "buy photo" button was simply "add to cart" and they could make their size, quantity, etc decisions LATER. Hmm...
Edited to say: this is how Snapfish works.......... when you're picking one photo at a time, anyway...
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Come on, that's not fair. Nobody in the Amazon or Wal-mart shopping cart is ever confused as to what it will do when they click on this:
It's a regular web link and it unambiguously takes you to the item. I've got no problem with that. It's useful in the Amazon cart where I have experience.
However, when you click on the image here:
it's quite ambiguous what it's going to do. We are supplying data that several of us thought it was going to let us adjust the crop and WE DIDN"T WANT TO LEAVE THE CART. In fact,we were probably in the process of finalizing our cart to buy. I can't say whether everyone thinks that or not, but it certainly isn't 100% obvious what it's going to do so it's a problem.
The Wal-Mart cart in your example, has a very clear and prominent button:
I've got no problem with that either. That's very clear what the customer's intention is.
The issue is when the customer is trying to finalize their order which they probably are in the Smugmug cart when faced with cropping choices because you don't see the cropping items in the normal buy this photo, go find another photo workflow. You only see it when you hit CheckOut after a buy this photo or when you explicity click on the cart icon to just go to the cart. At that point, I would think that you would complete a higher percentage of cart tranactions if a customer stayed in the cart until they explicitly asked to leave the cart or completed the transaction.
To summarize, clicking on this in the cart:
is ambiguous what it's going to do. Several of us thought it would let us adjust the crop, but that's not what it does. That's not good. That is a clear UI problem.
I think the severity of the issue is made worse by the fact that you see this when you are trying to finish your cart and complete the buying transaction and a click on it when you thought it was going to let you adjust the crop makes the cart go away which is a no-no right when someone is trying to buy. If you think our recommendation doesn't work or has a problem, there are many other ways to address this problem.
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