03 Mar 2003 | malross said...

Better yet, why doesn't the form just default to having a "1" in there when the page first loads?

03 Mar 2003 | Joshua Kaufman said...

It may be something that they translated from real life shopping. Often when I'm shopping, I'm thinking, "I need three of these." But I don't think that works very well online - probably because I'm so accustomed to just clicking "Add to shopping cart." At any rate, adding an item to your cart is an interaction pattern and Crate & Barrel breaks that pattern, which is bad for them. If they were smart, they would follow patterns and do as Amazon does: only allow you change quantities when you're on the shopping cart page.

03 Mar 2003 | JF said...

Yeah, Malross, that would work too. Either way, there's no reason a customer should see an error if they just click the ADD TO CART button (unless, of course, they need to specify size, color, etc -- none of which are requirements for the clock example).

03 Mar 2003 | bill said...

Another good example of bad design with ADD TO CART buttons is on gloss.com, where similarly, the system forces the user to enter in a qty. It's at least a quick javascript popup, but still annoying. This problem is compounded by the fact that there are 18 products displayed on the page.

A lot of these simple usability issues come from sloppy and quick development. But it is also these little issues that seem to take the longest to get resolved once pushed live, because they aren’t considered show-stoppers....

On a related subject, has anyone seen a decent design solution to something like this page on gloss where you have a main product(the lipstick), and then multiple variances of the product(the various shades), and the product is a consumable product. The solution is not so bad until you bring the whole consumable aspect into the picture. We have found that purchasers want to buy multiples of numerous shades at the same time, hence the current solution.

03 Mar 2003 | Tim said...

Wow...I agree that's a pretty poor experience. Two things:

1.) If their system is too "dumb" to assume 1 item...I think a simple red asterisk (for example) with a note that "Quantity" is a required field might do the trick.

2.) I love the condescending tone of all these "Oops!" error messages. Maybe it's just me, but I always feel talked-down-to by those..."Oops, did you fawl down an' hurt your wittle tushy?" Maybe it's just me ;)

03 Mar 2003 | steve said...

Ironically, the error messaging here is quite good. I like how it's both at the top of the page and above the Add To Cart button.

However, you can't help but think that the obvious time and effort put into the contingency design would have been better spent recognizing and working around the quantity issue so it's not a problem in the first place!

03 Mar 2003 | JF said...

Ironically, the error messaging here is quite good. I like how it's both at the top of the page and above the Add To Cart button.

But it's missing next to the most important place: The quantity field itself.

03 Mar 2003 | Tim said...

And for those of us who are interested in ordering 100 sphere alarm clocks...it looks like we'll have to break that into two orders, since the quantity field allows only two digits.

03 Mar 2003 | Michael S. said...

Looks like they did a lot right with the site. It has a very clean, classy design. And as far as contingency design goes, go to the home page and click on the images of the glassware. It goes to the product page!

As for entering quantities, I didn't notice this until I saw more than one on a page. You're supposed to use the quantity as a way to select which one(s) you want to order. And with mutiple items, there is only one Add to Cart button, and if it assumed 1 of each, you'd get one of each without choosing which ones you want.

There should be a separate Add to Car button (or text link) next to each item individually, and it should assume 1 (or default "1" in the text field).

03 Mar 2003 | Michael S. said...

Okay, I take that back. The smaller images on the home page only go to the category, not the individual item. So close!

03 Mar 2003 | JF said...

Yes, Crate and Barrel does a lot of stuff right. That's why I'm picking on them -- because I know they care.

03 Mar 2003 | nathan said...

The Crate and Barrel shopping interface is good when you are purchasing MATCHED SETS of things, but it is a poor fit for single items like the clock, or RELATED items like shower curtains and roller rings.

If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail i guess, but Crate and Barrel would be better off with different interfaces for buying matched sets, related items, one-off items, and choosing between different colors for the same item.

03 Mar 2003 | Jamie said...

JF, I like that alarm clock! :)

I agree with your points about our Add to Cart functionality on the Crate and Barrel site. Maybe we shouldn't be yelling at a customer when all they're trying to do is add the item to their cart. Maybe we should build some smarts into the page to react differently when there is only one item to buy versus several items. These are all great observations.

The big struggle is to build a widget (Add to Cart) that scales appropriately across all of our product types (sets, individual pieces, different colors, etc.). All of these product pages are being generated from (essentially) one XSL doc. Maybe that's the problem--we're trying to be too template driven...

Either way, these are all very good points that I will discuss with the team over here at Crate and Barrel. Thanks for taking a look at our site and giving some constructive feedback.

Keep up the great work. Big ups to EK and ML. When are we going to get together and catch up?

04 Mar 2003 | joan said...

This critique doesn't really recognize that different types of products require different presentation. When shoppers are considering purchasing something like dinnerware, the convenience of having all items of a particular pattern on one page is critical. Obviously, we wouldn't want to assume that customers want 1 of every single item listed for purchase on that page. If we did, they would have to enter a quantity of zero for every item listed on the page which would be unacceptable. Since the majority of the products on the Crate and Barrel site are of this "set" nature, we found this design to be the most user friendly for our particular customers. One could argue that we could assume a quantity of 1 for those pages that only feature a single product, but the benefit of this doesn't seem to outweigh the potential confusion of having inconsistent "add to cart" functionality from one page to another on our site.

04 Mar 2003 | Don Schenck said...

Alarms clocks suck.

Seriously. I lust for the day when I can sleep and never use an alarm clock.

04 Mar 2003 | JF said...

First, thanks to the folks at Crate and Barrel for chiming in. Companies that care are great companies.

One could argue that we could assume a quantity of 1 for those pages that only feature a single product, but the benefit of this doesn't seem to outweigh the potential confusion of having inconsistent "add to cart" functionality from one page to another on our site.

The system should think like a person and act differently based on the setting. If someone is buying a single product on a single page, clicking the ADD TO CART button without entering anything into the quantity field should assume one item. Throwing an error back at someone for something like this just adds another [confusing] step to to what should be an ultra-simple buying process. If someone didn't enter a quantity, they more than likely didn't want 6 of them. If they did want 6, but didn't enter a quantity, get a single item in their cart and let them modifiy the quantity in the cart later.

On pages with sets and multiple items, quantity should be required unless no quantity is entered anywhere and someone clicks an ADD TO CART button next to an individual product.

Just my opinion. And I understand there are technology and business decisions that come into play here. I'm just talking about the customer experience and UI side of things.

04 Mar 2003 | Josh said...

"to throw an error at someone when they didnt really make a mistake." -- makes the presumption it seems that anyone who hits the add to cart button or the much more common function of pressing enter in the middle of the form intended to only purchase one item. Every internet user has encountered submitting a form prematurely, or tabbing to the wrong field or entering a one in specific line, but not another. Would it not also be rude to guess what the user wants in their cart rather than forcing them to be specific?

04 Mar 2003 | JF said...

Every internet user has encountered submitting a form prematurely, or tabbing to the wrong field or entering a one in specific line, but not another. Would it not also be rude to guess what the user wants in their cart rather than forcing them to be specific?

Yes, we all make mistakes (which is the key tenent of contingency design). But, I submit that getting an item in a customer's cart FIRST, then allowing them to change quantity, is the better business and design decision. This way no one encouters an error (which are often offensive, confusing, intimidating, and dent an otherwise smooth customer experience). Amazon realized this technique early and its one of the reasons buying something on Amazon is so easy (don't make me think, just click the add to shopping cart button).

04 Mar 2003 | Josh said...

Well, not to re-iterate Joan's point, but C&B isn't Amazon. Most people don't buy 5 copies of the same book, or 3 copies of UT2003, but buying 4 glasses is commonplace. Even buying 2 floor lamps isn't unheard of. Having the pages function differently for different products seems bad HCI. If you went to a set page first, you'd expect a single item page to act the same way (you'd have to enter a quantity) and vice versa (you'd expect the set page to require a quantity of zero), no?

In theory, I agree. Most e-commerce I frequent I'm out to buy a single item, because 90% of my online shopping is gadgetry and software. Amazon, B&N, Best Buy, etc. etc. - all the same function. C&B is just a bad example I think.

Plus it should be noted that despite the error, to "correct" the no quantity situation the user only has to hit two keys - a 1 and the enter button. To change the quantity, they'd have to exit to the cart page, update their cart, and continue shopping. If we agree that both scenarios are possible (the user who accidentally puts one in his cart vs the user who doesn't enter a quantity when they inted one), which is more "offensive and confusing", an error message with instructions or the user having to go to their cart to remove things?

04 Mar 2003 | SU said...

Having the pages function differently for different products seems bad HCI. If you went to a set page first, you'd expect a single item page to act the same way (you'd have to enter a quantity) and vice versa (you'd expect the set page to require a quantity of zero), no?

Just because you are consistent does not mean you've created a good interaction between the computer and the human using it. It's better to break with consistency if the benefits of making that break outweigh the cost of making the customer learn a new UI.

Even then, what are the real costs of learning a new UI on the fly? After all, the same customer making a purchase at Crate & Barrel may have just made another purchase at Pottery Barn. So their last experience with product selection may be with a UI that is completely foreign to C&B shoppers. This happens all the time, and yet poeple aren't bailing out of one web site because it doesn't mimc the UI on the previous site they visited.

04 Mar 2003 | D.Bogus said...

I think there is some value in having to explicitly set quantities and manually enter things. Sometimes its not a good thing to have everything filled out... you get lazy or occasionally miss something in the fine print or don't really take the time to make sure that the order is correct or on the up and up.

I recently had problems with Register.com automatically renewing a domain name by charging my credit card. Apparently, the renewal process is implicit... I have to explicitly say that I don't want to keep on buying this thing.

There needs to be a balance between convenience and effort... convenient enough to use, but not so convenient so that users become lazy or are easy 'bait and switch' targets. The order process needs to be a series of mutual checks so that both parties understand what transaction is occuring.

04 Mar 2003 | JF said...

Even buying 2 floor lamps isn't unheard of.

Then enter "2" in the quantity field. If you only want one, you should be able to enter "1" in the quantity field or leave it blank. "Add To Cart" should default to 1 if you didn't enter anything. You can't add 0 items to a cart.

I think there is some value in having to explicitly set quantities and manually enter things.

For whom? The engineers or the customers? If I want a lamp, for example, I should just be able to click the Add To Cart button without having to enter "1" in the quantity field.

04 Mar 2003 | said...

That makes sense, but what if you want 3 lamps?

04 Mar 2003 | carlos said...

greetings all:

let me start by saying that some of the posts in this thread have some really good points and bring value to the table...but any given ecommerce storefront in this day and age cannot account for 100% of all user needs and expectations...

modeling out a truly adaptive and intelligent storefront
that reacts and displays information based on user needs and expecations is a white whale that nobody in our field should stop pursuing...

the solution we have crafted at this point was to develop a UI that
services a majority of shopping customers and has
messaging in place that will guide them to recover from errors.

we've tested this concept and ran it through a series of some pretty hardcore usability testing, and we always build our interaction architecture based on what our customers SHOW us.

so maybe this convention is not 100% optimal, but it does get the job done and allows our customers to recover from errors while fulfilling the need of the system to give customers the ability to add multiple items to cart on pages that have more than 1 item.

04 Mar 2003 | pb said...

I *hate* having to enter a quantity before clicking Add to Cart. I challenge the assertion that quantity=1 is not the most common quantity at C&B...by far.

04 Mar 2003 | roberta said...

Why assume that the user will only buy ONE item? By having the user typing in the quantity it makes the user think "maybe I do want one, but hey, maybe I want two alarm clocks - one for each bedroom I have or maybe even three for the third bedroom!" Maybe you don't shop like that, but I sure do!

I also think your comment about 'bad design and manners' was a bit out of line. Of course you would pick an item like an alarm clock to discuss about - why didn't you pick an item like a plate or a cup? Gee - what would you say then?

04 Mar 2003 | JF said...

Why assume that the user will only buy ONE item?

Maybe I haven't been clear... I'm not assuming they will only buy one item. I'm saying if they just click the "ADD TO CART" button without entering anything in the quantity field then they probably just want one and shouldn't be shown an error message. If they want 3 or 4 or 5 or whatever, then they can enter the number in the quantity field.

Again, all I'm saying is that if someone leaves it blank, add one item to their cart and let them change the quantity from the cart instead of telling them they did something wrong.

Of course you would pick an item like an alarm clock to discuss about - why didn't you pick an item like a plate or a cup?

Ok, pick a plate. If I want one plate I should be able to just click "ADD TO CART" without entering anything in the tqy field OR entering "1" in the qty field. If I want three, I can enter "3" into the qty field and then click "ADD TO CART."

And I'll stand by my bad manners comment -- telling a customer they did something wrong when they really didn't is bad manners/design (since when is clicking the "ADD TO CART" button to buy a single item wrong?). I just don't see a reason to add yet another layer of interaction into the buying experience. Just let them have one item if they didn't enter a quantity. If they were conciously thinking of wanting to buy 5 they would have entered 5. If they didn't they'd still have an opportunity to add 4 more in the cart itself.

04 Mar 2003 | roberta said...

so for something like this page would it'd be ideal to have the "1" quantity in every box or perhaps a ADD TO CART to every line?

i mean, you gotta be consistent, no? :)

04 Mar 2003 | pk said...

I wouldn't want to go through and add zeros to the items I don't want. On that page it makes sense to add quantities and then click add to cart once. I think it would be ok to treat stand alone items (a clock, rug, etc.) differently than a grouped (sheets, cups, plates) items.

04 Mar 2003 | JF said...

i mean, you gotta be consistent, no?

I don't believe you do, no. For the example you cited, the way it works now is fine. But for a single item on a single page I believe it should work differently (as I've stated).

04 Mar 2003 | ek said...

Man, we have all the ex-OGNCers on this thread!

pb said:

I challenge the assertion that quantity=1 is not the most common quantity at C&B...by far.

pb, I don't presume to speak for the C&B folks, but I don't think that's what they're saying. It seems that the issue at C&B is more that many items are set-based ala the " Peacock Dinnerware" featured on the homepage right now.

Even items that aren't necessarily set-based, such as these plastic cutting boards are displayed in set form, which is an interesting way to do it in my opinion (means you don't have to select a color).

In these instances you really couldn't have the quantity default to "1" because you'd end up with one of each item -- certainly not what most people would expect.

I think what this situation boils down to is determining what is the exception and what is the rule. If, through their research, the C&B folks have found that the majority of purchases are set purchases than it doesn't seem to make sense to design to the exception of single item purchases. And, at least in my opinion, it would be a bit strange if the "add to cart" behaviour varied from item to item.

And to say that because Amazon does it one way makes it the best way is, to me, not necessarily a good argument. Amazon does a lot of things well, but they also do some things very poorly, their list views being an example. And, as someone else noted, Amazon is very much designed around single item purchases (i.e. books, cds, dvds, etc.) vs. set purchases (dinnerware, cutlery, linens, etc.).

The one thing I would recommend changing, though, is the language of the error message a site visitor is shown when he/she clicks "Add to Cart" without purchasing an item. I would lose the "Oops" and just say something along the lines of "Please specify a quantity before adding this to your cart." The oops makes it sound like the visitor screwed up, which is something they don't need to be told.

But enough of that, when's the next ex-OGNC get together?!?!?

04 Mar 2003 | ek said...

JF said:

I don't believe you do, no. For the example you cited, the way it works now is fine. But for a single item on a single page I believe it should work differently (as I've stated).

I don't know, I can't say I agree on this point. From what I've seen of non-technical people using computers, their biggest gripe is perceived inconsistency. People can get very good at working around what may be perceived as a deficiency if it is consistent. Once things start changing they lose their bearings.

I think this is one of those situations where the solution might seem elegant from a technical perspective, but could cause more harm than good out in the wild.

Oh yeah, one thing I forgot to add to my previous message, what the heck are you guys doing using ASP?!?! ;-)

04 Mar 2003 | JF said...

I hate you EK.

No, really... Look... A good and simple solution would be defaulting the quantity field to "1" on single item purchase pages.

04 Mar 2003 | Jamie said...

Enough about the Add to Cart. Check out our new and improved search... EK, what up!?

04 Mar 2003 | JF said...

Here's what I'd like to see...

C&B, do you have statistics on how many people see that error on a single item page and then enter an quantity of "1" ?

04 Mar 2003 | JF said...

Another thing I'd like to see is what percentage of the time people get that error on a single item page.

04 Mar 2003 | cf said...

Not exactly what you are asking... but a quick survey of, approximately, the last 25,000 page views came up with about 9 examples of that error being displayed

05 Mar 2003 | pb said...

OK, I'm changing my mind. Their product selection does seem oriented towards more explicit ordering by quantity. So, I don't think the way they've set it up is that bad. Tho I still prefer an Add to Cart button being associated with each SKU. So I'd switch my question to how frequently do buyers add multiple SKUs to their cart at once?

05 Mar 2003 | p8 said...

Interesting discussion.

Josh said: "Every internet user has encountered submitting a form prematurely, or tabbing to the wrong field or entering a one in specific line, but not another. Would it not also be rude to guess what the user wants in their cart rather than forcing them to be specific?"

But do more users prematurely submit the form or do more users submit the form without a quantity.
And who has made the real error? The person prematurely submitting the form (who can change quantities when checking out) or the person missing the quantity field and just wanting to add to the cart? (Who might bail out of the website after this error message)

Also when I'm on this page and I can add 1 dinner plate to the cart. On the following page the quantity field doesn't say I have already chosen one. So if I want to add another I have to choose 1 quantity again.
Now when I check out I see two plates (which are exactly the same) each with a quantity of "1.

I would have expected to see a "1" in the quantity field that I could change to a "2". And when I check out I would expect identical products to be grouped.

05 Mar 2003 | nathan said...

Nice catch p8! Identical items should be grouped in the cart, especially in the cart quick view widget that's persistent in the global nav. I added several peacock plates at seperate times, so instead of seeing:

>Peacock Dinner Plate (5)

or at least:

>Peacock Dinner Plate (1)
>Peacock Dinner Plate (4)

I see:

>Peacock Dinner Plate
>Peacock Dinner Plate

The "add to cart" interface may be debatable, but grouping identical items and enumerating quantities isn't.

05 Mar 2003 | nathan said...

...unless you want to send one plate to yourself and a set of four to another address as a gift... the current checkout and shipping interface does not allow you to break up line items added to the cart.

05 Mar 2003 | Jamie said...

...unless you want to send one plate to yourself and a set of four to another address as a gift... the current checkout and shipping interface does not allow you to break up line items added to the cart.

Try going past the cart. You can define multiple ship-tos.

05 Mar 2003 | nathan said...

I did go past the cart, and you can't ship to multiple addresses if you only have one line item in the cart:

Joe User can't add 5 Peacock plates in one go, then ship 3 to himself and 2 to a friend. He must add 3 to his cart, then add 2, and then specify multiple ship-tos.

It's a tough nut to crack, Amazon only sells things in discreet units (one CD, one set of 6 plates), while C&B's more robust model lets you order matching sets of plates, or single items. Its an interesting case study, and another reason we should all think twice before doing things "the Amazon way".

07 Mar 2003 | MegoSteve said...

I don't think what Crate & Barrel did is all that bad. It's certainly no worse than having no timestamp on comments here. I had to scroll halfway down the page to see whether comments were ascending or descending. I've never been on a message board (or blog) that didn't have timestamps on its posts.

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