User interface design for e-commerce websites: Sharing from the former general manager of PChome shopping mall

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E-commerce subsidy war and interface criticism

The subsidy war that started in 2017 between the two major e-commerce websites, the foreign [Shopee Shopping] (https://shopee.tw/) and the local PChome, is still turbulent and has not completely stopped. This battle not only skyrocketed the popularity and momentum of Shopee Shopping, but also triggered a lot of criticism from netizens on the website, App and other user interfaces of [PChome Online Shopping] (https://shopping.pchome.com.tw/).

Former general manager of PChome Shopping Street [Su Yun](https://www.businesstoday.com.tw/article/categ ory/80392/post/201803230040/%E6%8B%9A%E5%A4%A7%E5%8F%8D%E6%94%BB%EF%BC%81%E8%98%87%E8%8A%B8%EF%B C%9A%E6%AF%8F%E6%9C%88%E4%B8%8A%E8%90%AC%E5%80%8B%E8%9D%A6%E7%9A%AE%E8%B3%A3%E5%AE%B6%E5%87%BA%E 8%B5%B0%E8%87%B3%E5%95%86%E5%BA%97%E8%A1%97) (currently the general manager of Japan Open Air, a Japanese affiliate company of PChome Group), once took the initiative to invite the media. She clearly pointed out that the situation in this battle has been reversed. Not only has it ended the dilemma of tens of thousands of sellers leaving the shopping street every month since the second half of 2017; many Shopee sellers have even moved to the shopping street one after another!

Although Shopping Street burned 1 billion in losses due to the free shipping subsidy in 2017, she also emphasized that because it did not charge any fees, the shopping street announced that it had exceeded 50,000 merchants in October last year. Now the number of individual store sellers has also grown steadily, and even more than 10,000 per month have migrated from Shopee.

From the reports of various media, it is not difficult to see some of PChome’s recent layouts. However, what is more intriguing is that [General Manager Su] (http://corporate.pcstore.com.tw/about_1.html) took the initiative to mention the interface problem that was previously criticized by many netizens.

From the [report] of the online media INSIDE (https://www.inside.com.tw/2018/03/23/pchome-store), you can see this conversation by General Manager Su:

Su Yun believes that the [“interface” issue] (https://www.inside.com.tw/2018/03/23/pchome-store), which has been constantly raised in previous debates, covers too much scope. It is better to say that it will gradually improve the “functions” requested by netizens.

It is indeed a good thing that PChome can respond to the interface problems previously reported by netizens; however, we have no way of knowing how deeply General Manager Su understands this issue.

──Is it an understatement just to answer questions from the media? Or is the understanding of user interface only limited to the functional level?

Let’s take a look at the [report] of another media technology newspaper (https://buzzorange.com/techorange/2018/03/23/pcstore-for-2018/), which also mentioned the PChome team’s design improvements to the user interface:

Su Yun, general manager of PChome shopping mall, said that in fact, PChome has been undergoing revisions, but it may not be the “pictures or UI design” that everyone sees. Most of the revisions focused on the speed of the back-end, and a lot of time was spent improving the speed of the back-end in order to cope with the explosive growth in the number of transactions in the personal store. The latest revision is to optimize the image loading speed on the mobile version.

Speeding up the loading speed of website information is undoubtedly the right thing to do and deserves the attention of the PChome team, and I also agree with my friend’s statement──UI/UX has never been the key to Shopee’s defeat of PChome. However, this does not mean that user interface design is not important.

Core Values of User Interface Design

User interface design integrates the concepts of interaction design, visual design and information architecture. For e-commerce websites, good user interface design not only provides beautiful image information and eye-catching copywriting, but also improves communication with users and helps businesses understand what users want to do.

For users, user interface often also means the product itself. For this group of consumers who have grown up with PChome, they may have been accustomed to the user interface and operation process of PChome’s online shopping, but this does not mean that they are completely convinced and accepted. Once a competitor joins the battle and offers more attractive options to choose from, consumers will naturally follow their heart and make a decision quickly.

It is certainly a good thing that PChome is willing to pay attention to the opinions of netizens. However, if you only think about user interface design from the functional aspect, you may fall into the situation of “missing the forest for the trees”.

Knowing how to “ask questions” and “ask the right questions” is the first step to do a good job in User Experience Design.

Eight golden rules of interface design

When talking about User Interface Design, one will think of the well-known American professor and computer scientist Ben Shneiderman advocated by Eight Golden Rules. These eight Principles of User Interface Design, include These include: maintaining design consistency, providing convenient operations for heavy users, providing meaningful feedback to users in a timely manner, clearly informing users of the status of their actions, simplifying error handling, ensuring a recoverable design, satisfying users’ desire for control, and simplifying operations to reduce users’ memory needs.

User interface design requires a good understanding of user needs.

In the field of user interface design, there are too many details worth exploring and pondering. For visitors to e-commerce websites, the possibility of wandering around cannot be ruled out, but more likely they want to shop or obtain product information. Faced with this group of visitors who come with clear intentions and purposes, businesses may wish to think about how to entertain these distinguished guests.

For the majority of consumers, the outcome of PChome online shopping and Shopee shopping may not be so important, but it depends on who can present an attractive beef? I also sincerely hope that these e-commerce manufacturers, which are making huge profits every day, will continue to improve and bring a better shopping experience.

By the way, if you are interested in user interface design, you can also refer to “Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective Human-Computer” Interaction](https://www.amazon.com/Designing-User-Interface-Human-Computer-Interaction/dp/013438038X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8& qid=1521966090&sr=1-1&keywords=Designing+the+User+Interface&dpID=51daGARTa0L&preST=SX218_BO1,204,203,200_QL40&dpSrc=srch)》This book! [An Introduction to Ben Shneiderman’s Eight Golden Rules of Interface Design”) from Jochen Wolters

★ Featured image credit: Bianca Lucas

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