Comments on: When Web Developers Dont Consider Usability

By: Norton

Norton — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 14:08:50 +0000

Yes, privacy can be an issue with cookie based carts. If someone shops on a shared computer (computer lab, coffee shop, etc.) and then someone else visits the same site on that computer, the cart would persist to the 2nd user. So, you wouldn’t want to store personal information, payment information, etc.

Input fields have the same problem and we’ve needed to explicitly code our payment textboxes so that they don’t prompt the user with the previously entered information.

We’ve used a cart stored in the session state for years and have lamented the fact that users lose the cart. (Our shared server re-boots the application once every 24 hours or so, which wipes out all session data.) This is a big problem these days, particularly at the holidays, when customers use their cart as a sort of wish list, while deciding what to get and where to get it. So, we’re implementing a cookie based cast and will use the session state cart only for those who do not accept cookies. (Our system will check if they accept cookies and store the cart information accordingly.)

We’ll also need to code something to make it clear that a previously saved cart exists, to prevent people from accidentally buying something that they didn’t know was in their cart from a previous session.

Writing a custom cart is certainly not a simple thing.

By: free vpn

free vpn — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:01:55 +0000

He probably has “X” amount of dollars to spend in this exercise. Make sure he buys at least ten stocks.

By: soccer

soccer — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 11:40:39 +0000

How will we have money to support millions of more people in the future?

By: Tim

Tim — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 19:12:19 +0000

I will bless the day I can work with people like you. Great(!) article and insight. And consider me a returning customer

By: Linda Bustos

Linda Bustos — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 17:18:59 +0000

@Michael,

The cookie problem is more of anti-spyware programs that delete cookies on behalf of the user on a regular basis.

Re: persistent carts without cookies, are you referring to session IDs? Yes they carry some security risks if the session URL is somehow bookmarked or shared. This article may be of interest to you in that regard
http://searchsoftwarequality.techtarget.com/news/article/0,289142,sid92_gci1156684,00.html

By: Michael Kimsal

Michael Kimsal — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 15:01:14 +0000

Couple of questions after reading this:

How many people explicitly and knowingly turn off total cookie support in their browser?

If you try to implement some sort of ‘persistent cart’ experience (somehow without using cookies) what about privacy of people using public systems? There are privacy concerns that need to be balanced with ‘usability’ which don’t seem to be addressed here.

By: Toucouleur

Toucouleur — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 10:56:42 +0000

@Inigo = you seems to be a Magento resselers without the knowledge of his own products. Of course you can manage persistent shopping cart, but users won’t have their cart stored for all the time.

As Toby mentioned above, the problem with persistent cart is how we can manage sessions data stored for a long time.

We are currently working on Magento & OsCommerce’s solutions to find out how persistents carts could be improved to manage unregistered shopping carts.

By: Inigo

Inigo — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 09:53:50 +0000

Or you can go with a package that already allows for persistent shopping carts e.g. Magento. Add the item to the basket, quit browser, come back and it’s still there in the cart…

By: Linda Cramer

Linda Cramer — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 17:20:31 +0000

I’m not sure customers hate registering. If you know you’ll be back to a site often and you are happy with your experience there. I think registering to save your data is valuable and done by many people who want to save time.

By: Anna

Anna — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 16:26:02 +0000

Its difficult for developers who are new to e commerce to consider usability fully and unfortunately the only way to learn is to make mistakes on peoples sites. Sad but true