America Online

Even the leader in simplicity can improve.

Keyword "shopping" on AOL.

The industry used to laugh at America Online. It considered AOL a dinosaur - a proprietary online service, with only tentative connectivity to the Web - with “newbie” users and a nauseatingly simple user interface.

Then AOL won. As millions of American consumers got online, they found that AOL's simple interface was the only one they could figure out how to use. Consumers can use AOL, so they do use AOL. Competing services are too hard to use.

AOL's ease-of-use (along with its phenomenal marketing efforts) has been an essential factor in its success. With that in mind, we evaluated the buying process within AOL's Shopping Channel to see whether it lived up to the ease-of-use we found on the six websites in the report.

Buying Titanic

Visiting the Shopping Channel, we found that James Cameron's Titanic was on sale at 20 percent off. We decided to evaluate the buying process for this book, figuring that a discount Titanic book would attract a wide audience of buyers. Figure 15 shows the Shopping Channel's promotion of the book.

Notice that AOL does not include underlined text links or instructions to “Click here” on the Titanic promotion. This is fine; remember that AOL users are already comfortable with AOL's interface, in which all “promo” graphics, like the Titanic book's, are clickable.

Twin Buying Pages

Clicking on the Titanic icon in the Shopping Channel, we were taken to another colorful screen, this one announcing the book as a “Special Offer” of the AOL store:

Titanic - The Movie Book
Save 20%!

Directly under the title graphic was a button labeled “More Info/Buy Now.” Why should users have to click to get more information? Why not offer one clear function for the button: “Buy Now”?

Clicking on “More Info/Buy Now” brought us to a screen with the same title graphic, another buy button (this one called “Click Here to Order”), and more text about the book. (Figure 16 shows both screens.)

The effect of having both of these screens is that users have to decide, twice, to buy. AOL gives users two chances to forget the book and click off to another area on the service. By not making the buying process as simple as possible, AOL undoubtedly has lost sales of the Titanic book.

AOL might reply, fairly, that it was forced to present users with two screens because of some obscure requirement of its proprietary system. Being within the proprietary online service, these buying forms don't enjoy the same amount of flexibility that standard Web-based HTML pages do. But we really don't care why AOL may have been forced into this. To anyone who would justify its clunky back-end system, we have this message: The bottom line is customers, and customers don't care what back-end you're running. Either you make it easy to buy, or customers leave. Period.

The Quantity Page

Clicking on “Click Here To Order” on the previous screen, we proceeded to the Quantity page, where we were prompted to enter how many copies of the book we wanted (see Figure 17).

We had mixed reactions to this page: On the one hand, it is a refreshingly simple design. No AOL Store logo, no marketing blurb - just a simple instruction, a box, and the buttons. On the other hand, how likely is it for an AOL user to buy more than one copy of the Titanic book? Or any item in the AOL Store, for that matter? Certainly the likelihood is not great enough to justify slowing the buying process with yet another screen.

None of the other online stores in this report stop the buying process to ask the user the quantity. Yes, customers should be given the option to buy more than one unit of an item - but that option could be folded into another screen, later in the process. Quantity should not be given its own screen.

The Shopping Cart

Once we chose to buy one copy of the Titanic book, AOL presented us with the Shopping Cart screen (see Figure 18).

The main problem with this screen is that it adds little value to the buying process. Users already know what's in their shopping cart: They just asked AOL three times to buy the book! Most users want to finish the order process, not click to move through yet another screen. (The one exception would be those users who will want to, and understand how to, shop for more items at AOL before checking out. For impulse buys like the Titanic book, we doubt this is commonly the case.)

Another problem with Shopping Cart is its design: It's loaded with instructions, caveats, and superfluous buttons. Again, users who impulsively want to buy the Titanic book just want to buy. Putting “Remove Item from Cart” and “Remove All Items from Cart” next to the “Checkout” button only slows the process.

One last comment on Shopping Cart concerns the “Review Item” button. “Double-Click on cart entry to review item,” says a wordy instruction at the top. A “Review Item” button sits next to “Checkout” at the bottom of the page.

If customers takes AOL up on its offer and go to the Review Item screen, what do they see?

The Review Item Screen

Figure 19 shows the Review Item screen. Our question is, what did we really need to review? We already knew the title, the quantity, and the price. This screen lists the shipping cost, but that's not much to review. We're forced to conclude that the Review Item screen is totally unnecessary to our buying process. How much simpler for the Shopping Cart page if it could remove all mentions of Review Item.

What AOL Should Have Done

For impulse buys like the Titanic book, AOL should make it easy to buy. No Shopping Cart, no Quantity screen, definitely no Review Item. Instead, here's a simpler, quicker, and more profitable design for selling the book to AOL customers:

Screen 1: AOL Shopping Channel. A promo for the Titanic book.
Screen 2: Titanic, the book. Blurb, price. Click Here To Order.
Screen 3: You're almost done with your order! Just type in your billing and delivery info. Click Here To Finish Order.

This alternative design would cut down on the number of buttons on each screen. It also would reduce the total number of screens. With the actual design, AOL users have to proceed through at least five screens before getting to the payment and delivery screens.

With all that said, we should note that AOL was one of the easiest sites we evaluated. No toolbars, no animated graphics, no endless stretches of text. Even though it can improve, AOL deserves credit for making it remarkably simple to buy the book.

What to Learn From America Online

Overall, AOL has the best ease-of-use on the Net. It's also the most popular online service and one of the most popular websites. Ease-of-use wins.
If your site's ease-of-use is poor, don't make any excuses (like “We had to do it that way”). Focus on results. If customers can't figure out your user interface, you'll lose money no matter what.
If most customers will buy one copy of an item and leave the store, make it quick and easy for them to buy one copy. Don't drag out the buying process with unnecessary screens.
Make it easy for the customer to buy.

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