Subject:
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LEGO Direct in Europe
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.lego.direct
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Date:
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Mon, 13 Nov 2000 18:54:41 GMT
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Highlighted:
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(details)
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Viewed:
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523 times
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Hi everybody,
I just placed a DM 500 order with LEGO Direct in Germany:
<http://shop.lego.com>
Functionally, this worked perfectly, and I could do it in German language.
However, the user friendliness of the site did not really convince me, so
I took the opportunity and used the email address
<shop.at.home.europe@lego.com>
given in the order confirmation to mail the following feedback message.
Hope I haven't been too harsh:
--8<--8<--8<--8<--8<--8<--8<--8<--8<--8<--8<--8<--8<--8<--
Hello,
first of all, I like the fact that I can now order online on the web from
Germany, and can use German as the language on the Web Site. I suggested
this a while ago to Germany@lego.com, and they told me that the latter of
these is planned, but that it would take until next year.
However, the user friendliness of the site really needs some help. Let me
start by telling you a bit about my experience, before I briefly suggest
some starting points for possible solutions.
Problem:
1 - Usability:
To actually order the 5 different items that make up my order, in quantities
larger than one each, I needed to visit 4 pages per item (1: article
overview, 2: article details, 3: Shopping Cart, 4: Recalculate Total).
With certain security relevant browser options disabled, the site cannot be
used at all.
2 - Performance:
Ordering these items as described above took me about 50 minutes, on an ISDN
line (1), making the average page loading time during my visit roughly two
minutes per page.
(1) Test driving the site from a T1 connection didn't feel different.
The combination of these two weaknesses makes the total user experience
close to unacceptable. Probably I just went through it because I am a real
LEGO geek (check what I ordered if you don't believe me).
Possible Solutions:
1 - Usability
Significantly reduce the number of pages that need to be visited:
(a) Sort bulk brick items by type rather than article number on the
overview pages
(b) Provide enough information on each set for 90% of the cases dir-
ectly on the overview pages. Most important missing information
for most bulk brick sets: Number of parts.
(c) Provide an entry field for a number instead of individual "add
to cart" buttons, and have a single button to add all of these
to the shopping cart
(d) Don't take me to the shopping cart when I add something to it.
I know for myself when I want to look into it.
All of these measures together would have reduced the number of pages to
visit in order to get my order done from 30 to about ten, or by 66%. Not
bad, uh?
The menus you have do not only take too long to load (see below), they also
don't function at all in certain situations. While it is OK to use Java and
JavaScript for certain cool yet secondary options of a web site (for example
to improve the look and feel) there always needs to be a way to use major
features (like finding items and placing an order in an online shop) without
all features of a fancy newest generation web browser switched on. This
concept is sometimes referred to as "graceful degradation". Ask your web
designers what they know about it. If they haven't heard about it, it may be
time to get more competent ones ...
One last point: Excessive use of cookies is no endorsement for a web site. I
understand that shopping carts are usually implemented with a cookie, but
six cookies per page are certainly more than users who have good reasons to
accept cookies only after confirmation, in selected cases, would want to
acknowledge.
2 - Performance
Pages seem to be authored in a way that prevents Web browsers from caching.
In other words, going back to a page where I have already been doesn't feel
any faster than loading the page for the first time. Most of the time during
page loading is not consumed by data transfer, so presumably there is a lot
of Java or JavaScript being executed. Sometimes, page loading stalled for
more than a minute for "menus being loaded", as the status line says. All of
this leads me to the following suggestion:
(a) Put design emphasis on loading time for the average user, with the
totally realistic goal to reach 10 seconds for first time load, and
less than that for cached pages. Anything above 20 seconds per page
on any computer with an ISDN connection is clearly unacceptable.
This way, the time to visit 30 pages could be reduced from 50 min to
probably no more than 10 minutes. Again, not bad, I think.
If you take these suggested Usability and Performance improvements together,
what has been an unpleasant and lengthy shopping session of about 50
minutes, mostly waiting for the computer, could be transformed into less
than 10 minutes, where most of the time the computer would be waiting for me
to make up my mind. Which of these two ways, you think, will make more
revenue for your company?
Greetings
Horst Lehner
PS: No, I am not a professional web authoring consultant, but sometimes
I think I should, and could, be ...
PPS: If you are the wrong person to address these issues, please pass this
email on as appropriate.
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | in USA too (was: Re: LEGO Direct in Europe)
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| Horst, Thanks for a good description of the website problems. Your comments apply equally well to the USA website. I also completed one order, enduring the javascript menu loading. However, a coworker of mine told me today that he tried to order an (...) (24 years ago, 13-Nov-00, to lugnet.lego.direct)
| | | Re: LEGO Direct in Europe
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| Hello everybody, here is the answer I got for my recent letter to LEGO Shop@Home about the user (un)friendliness of their web site: --8<--8<--8<--8<--8<...--8<--8<-- Dear Mr Lehner, Many thanks for contacting LEGO® Shop at Home.Your useful and (...) (24 years ago, 17-Nov-00, to lugnet.lego.direct)
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