Usability Review: The Sharper Image

Sometimes great usability on one site can completely spoil you for the next.

After reviewing the helpful product comparison features of RadioShack, BestBuy and TigerDirect, my recent visit to the Sharper Image has left a few things to be desired.

Web Experience Shouldn’t Be Different If You’re Search or Browse Dominant

It’s a fact that some web users are search dominant, and some are browse dominant. So an e-commerce store should optimize for both types of users, because you don’t know what type your next lifetime customer will be. What I found on The Sharper Image site is that if you’re browse dominant, you don’t get to access the same functionality that you would using a search box.

For example, let’s say I’m looking for some stereo speakers for a home entertainment system. If I’m search dominant, I’ll head over to the search box, appropriately located in the top right hand corner. And I’ll type in “Stereo Speakers.”

This is what I see (click for larger images):

And when I select Stereos and Speakers from the horizontal navigation menu (browse dominant behaviour), I see:

Do you notice the difference in sub-menus? Why do search dominant users get the benefit of narrowing by price while browse dominant have to weed through all the results?

Help Users Whittle Down Results

Whether I browse or use the search box, I retrieve 4 pages of results with some form of sub-navigation on the left side of the page, although the menus are not the same for each method as you can see in the screen shot.

Most of these results are for iPod docks and accessories. Only a few results are for CD stereos, power sub-woofers, Zune docks, wireless speakers or home theater. The iPod does have its own category, but clicking on iPod and MP3 yields mostly the same results!

Since I’m looking for home entertainment (home theater) accessories, I’m left to dig through all the results. Of course I could just type “home theater” into a search box, but not every browse dominant shopper thinks of that, or even types in the right keyword. Keyword relevance is based on the text used in product names and descriptions, and for some sites, based on keyword tagging. So there’s a chance a shopper could enter in a keyword that the system doesn’t recognize, but is a product that the online store carries. Even though I’m quite tech savvy and I do love my iPod, I tend to think of speakers as large, home theater accessories, and iPod speakers as “docks.” I don’t want to assume that everyone thinks this way, but in general you need to assume a significant number of users are a few years behind in technology, or may use different words to describe the same thing.

Now, if sorting through heaps of irrelevant results isn’t frustrating enough, if I want to go back to page 2 from page 4, I have to fiddle with this tiny “go to” field, and enter 2, or hit back twice. A better way (and you could argue more conventional) is to use the Gooooogle style spread of hyperlinked page numbers, so a user could just with one click go back to a particular page. This would also reduce visual stress, eliminating the need for the “Go to”, the field, and the redundant text on the “GO” button.

Product Comparison Matrices Are A User’s Friend

In a previous post about the product comparison matrix, I reviewed RadioShack, BestBuy and TigerDirect’s product compare features. The Sharper Image makes no effort to provide this utility. So I’m left to click on each individual product for more info while plowing my way through 4 pages of results. Hey, if I wasn’t doing this usability review, I would have gone straight to TigerDirect and not bothered to view each all the pages.

As I have discussed previously, some shoppers will use the Add to Cart button to bookmark products for consideration. Adding an “Add to Clipboard” or “Add to Wishlist” link would give this type of user a tool to accomplish this without adding to a cart they are likely to abandon. For some industries like clothing and jewelry, this makes more sense, as a consumer looking for home theater speakers is likely in the market for one kit only, whereas clothing shoppers don’t need to compare items side by side to make a single purchase decision for each product. Bookmarking all the tops and skirts and shoes you like as you surf makes more sense, and the consumer can then prioritize purchases based on the amount they are willing to spend.

The Sharper Image’s Usability Kudos

Now with this all said, The Sharper Image is doing a lot right.

• The e-store shows you a running tally of items in your cart ($)
• There is good product info
• There are clear links to “Bill Me Later” policy
• You can view more or larger images
• There’s a link to the product manual
• You can email a friend (or yourself) or view a printer friendly version
• There is a clear button to view accessories
• There are navigational breadcrumbs

Wrapping It Up

The takeaway here is that a positive user experience on one site can spoil a shopper for her next experience. Now the bar has been set, and the absence of helpful features like product comparison or narrow results by price become expected. What seems like little details like the way you categorize your sub-menu items, how you display search and browse results, how a user can narrow products by price and by type and if and how a shopper can compare products between each other all adds up.

Based on my positive experience with BestBuy, TigerDirect and RadioShack, I’m bouncing off of Sharper Image and sticking with the others. If enough users are like me, it’s well worth the effort of a little extra programming for Sharper Image. And it’s well worth any e-tailer’s time to check out the competition’s features, and thoughtfully consider adding features that will improve your user experience in terms of narrowing product results.