Poor Web Usability Can Produce Poor Profits

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Monday, April 24, 2006
Poor Web Usability Can Produce Poor Profits

Most people probably don’t know this, but you can order USPS boxes and supplies online for free.

Anyhoo…

I added an item to my shopping cart at USPS.com and wanted to continue shopping. Come to find out there isn’t a “Continue Shopping” button anywhere on my screen.

This is poor design and poor website usability. The website is NOT user friendly to the visitor or purchaser. I wanted to buy more, but USPS.com is not giving me that option. Big mistake.

After doing some “shopping cart sleuthing”, I realize I can continue shopping, but I have to click on the “Shop Home” button or the links in the upper navigation. How am I supposed to know that I can continue shopping by using these other links? I should’t need to know - that’s my whole point. The website should be intuitive and not waste my time.

…it gets better…

I’m ready to purchase. After going through the complete sign-up process and submitting my credit card information, I get this error:

Wow! I wish they would’ve told me the store was experiencing problems before I spent all this time entering in my personal information. Greaaaat.

I needed to know where my data went? Did it get entered? I went back and tried to login to my new account. My information did go through. So USPS’ website crashed while processing my data. Other visitors may have been so lucky or have tried to login again. USPS’ users are probably contacting USPS directly about the problem and wasting everyone’s time.

Test Your Website

The point of all this is when designing your website make sure you test, test, and do some more testing to avoid errors that can cost your business money. Build a website that all of your visitors can successfully use.