Users usually need to be guided in order to finish a task. Designing a process funnel right will keep your visitors in the process and will make them finish the task they want to commit. This tasks could be as important as the Checkout Process, I will focus on this particular one.

Here there are 8 tips to improve usability during a checkout process:

1. Keep it short. If the process has too many steps users will be scared and will probably leave without finishing it.

2. Keep it long. If the process is too short, well, it’s not a process. Sometimes it’s better to divide tasks that could be presented in one page into smaller steps. Keeping every step short gives a sense of simplicity.

3. Progress bar. It is very important for the user to have information about how long the process it will be. Maybe your process is not that long, but if you don’t show that to the user, she might decide that is not worth enough to finish with it.

4. Back button. Give users the possibility to go backwards to check what they filled in the previous step.

5. Unnecessary steps. Give users the chance to skip steps they don’t need (e.g. the Amazon "Gift-Wrap" step).

6. Online help. Use floating windows or other online help to solve problems without taking users out of the process. Remember not to distract users.

7. Next step button. Make this button or link highly visible.

8. Make clear that the process is finished, if not you could have a lot of users contacting your customer service, which could become extremely expensive.

I would like to show you 7 examples I took from different websites. I focus on the information the user should get to make important decisions just before or during a checkout process funnel:

This is a longer than usual article. I wanted to present you a better usability example, so I decided to publish one long article for Wednesday and Thursday.

Designing a good checkout process is worth, if it is not easy customers might get confuse and leave without buying anything. This is dangerous. Some key points for a good checkout process design:

- A checkout process should be simple

- You should avoid distractions (like flashy advertisement that could drive customers to other pages)

- Checkout button should be highly visible

- Your checkout process is probably a secure one, make the user notice that, e.g. placing a secure connection notice, that gives a feeling of trust

- Shipping and total price should be clear

- The process should be short, potentially only 4-5 steps; coming from the shopping cart the process should include shipping, billing, summary and a confirmation.

I would like to analyze the beginning of the checkout process. Here I present 4 websites with some examples you shouldn’t do. This is not an extended website review but I would like to point out some usability problems I have found. 

The NFL Shop is great because it has a lot of products, the shopping cart is unfortunately not well design. Notice here the great amount of information surrounding what is important for the user, it also has too many red flashy buttons that don’t let users notice what is the important stuff. Recommended products are almost falling into the shopping cart, creating even more confusion (maybe a separating line or box would make same order).   

The Subside Sports checkout process begins with a huge usability problem, all the important buttons are placed at the bottom of the shopping cart. On the example there is only one item in it, but if you have more, the "Place Order" button will be hidden under the fold. A lot of users might never find that important button.  

Big Soccer is performing a horrible example, this guys don’t know about the existence of usability tests (or common sense?). After I added a t-shirt, the shopping cart was shown empty and I got an error message telling me that the t-shirt was not available. I additionally got an error saying that the system was not able to determine the quantity I wanted to order. So, this guys display on the catalog products that they don’t actually have and the user notice it after adding the product to the shopping cart. This what we call bad user experience. 

Skate America is also doing something bad. When I added a pair of snickers to the shopping cart, a t-shirt was automatically added for me. How nice, right? Well, actually not. Trust is also something you can communicate through a good design and adding products automatically to the shopping cart is not going in that direction. This is probably a marketing decision but interaction designers and usability experts (if they do have any) should warn about this kind of obscure tactics, trust is something highly desirable in online websites.  

Let users buy at your site without registering and the whole user experience will be improved. Sometimes users think they are not going to buy again at one particular site and that’s why they don’t register, but at the end if the experience is successful they might come back.

"Let users buy at your website without registering…"

Do it the other way round. Let users buy easily and make the whole checkout process simple. Then, at the end give the possibility to save all that information they’ve already entered with a password.

It’s doing the same, but in a nice way, users won’t feel they are going through a horrible registration process.

That’s what Amazon is doing (more or less, it’s not perfect either). At the beginning they just ask for an email and they ask the user for a password at the very end. This could be improved asking for both the email and the password at the end, then at the beginning they could place a "buy without register" option and many customers would be happier.  

There is one pattern to keep in mind during the design of the check-out process, and it’s to give customers the possibility of sending products to different addresses.

Again, Amazon is an example of good design and somehow a trend-setter. This box has become an standard and it’s easily recognized by many users, it’s usually located on the top-right corner.

“Forget someone? Enter a new address” is also a hit that users understand. Amazon also places a drop-down list next to each product to select an address. Excellent design, bravo Amazon.