Ecommerce user journeys contain many phases where retailers can inluence outcomes, corresponding to phases within the purchase decision cycle. The PIEPP purchase decision cycle model is great at helping to explain the complexities of human decision-making when we buy things.

PIEPP stands for:

Problem recognition - Identifying a need, whether “real” or not.

Information search - The more complicated the object, or the higher its ticket price, the more the information is needed to make a purchase.

Evaluation of criteria - Assessing whether the product meets your needs - a conscious and unconscious process.

Purchase decision - Are there any barriers to stop

The role of imagery in ecommerce is most apparent when considering its use in relation to product display. The nature of conducting transactions across the internet distances the user from the physical product – so they have none of the sensory information usually available when physically present such as touching, feeling, examining, seeing the product from any angle they wish, trying it on, etc.

Online retailing distances the user from the physical product - imagery plays a vital role in filling this sensory gap

Imagery therefore plays a vital role in filling this sensory gap – and as technology advances, the extent

An ecommerce product page is the online equivalent of a product display in a bricks-and-mortar shop front – the window through which you can display, inform, eulogise and promote a product to the world.

Whether a visitor has arrived there by navigating through faceted search, via a search engine, a referring website, or an email marketing campaign – the product page presents the opportunity to place your product in front of a potential customer…

In Part 2 we discussed optimising navigation and website structure to get the most out of your information architecture. In this part we will discuss issues relating to information retrieval and how computers and humans absorb your messaging and the way you present your data.

Information Architecture & Information Retrieval

Before we start discussing website navigation and structure it is important to touch on information retrieval as a driving force behind good information architecture design.

Information retrieval is the science of searching for documents, for information within documents and for

In part 1 we discussed a rudimentary appraisal of your website’s information architecture so you could gauge whether it met some basic commercial requirements. In this part we will discuss issues relating to navigation and website structure.

What is so important about navigation and structure?

How do I get around?

Navigation - determines how easily people can find things and retrieve data from the website - a vital component of successful task completion activities that drives bottom line. Taking a user perspective - when they hit a page, will they

Why do you need to optimise your website’s information architecture? A simple question that requires some serious thought; this is because IA (information architecture) has a big influence your website’s commercial success or failure because it is at the heart of the user experience (UX).

Who designed your IA?

How does IA design go wrong? The seriousness of some decisions made about IA are often not understood by those making the decisions.

In our experience, whilst many decision makers get many of the issues relating to IA, through common sense, commercial acumen, training and/or an autodidactic interest, they rarely know or appreciate all of the issues.

The factors from whence these issue can derive are generally…

The word ‘commercialism’ has somehow morphed in the public consciousness into a dirty word - to be associated with exploitation, cynicism and sharp practice. When commentators now speak of commercialism it is always insidious, creeping surreptitiously into some market to darken its doorstep; It’s ‘The Man’ stepping on the little people.

Commercialism in its original meaning simply meant:-

1. The practices, methods, aims, and spirit of commerce or business
2. An attitude that emphasizes tangible profit or success.

In general web professionals don’t talk too often about commercialism; whether this is consciously because many in the community advocate open and free transfer of information, or a