Displaying multiple pages of products
We conducted a usability test for client, an e-commerce site with an extensive inventory of Persian and Oriental rugs. When users performed fairly non-specific searches or browsed categories of rugs with multiple pages of products,? The client? displayed the paging mechanism as follows:
We discovered that users never clicked on the page numbers to advance, but instead, they clicked on the “Next” link. 83% of participants tested went directly to the “Next” and “Prev” links. This caused the site to jump to the next 5 pages of results and so users were essentially skipping 4 pages of products every time. When we asked them about this, they all stated that they never saw the page numbers and that their eye was drawn to the “Next” link. To solve the problem, Rugman.com changed the page forward and backward mechanism. Now, when visitors click on the “Next” link they are taken to the next page rather than the next set of 5 pages. The new design looks like this:
And when they click “Next”, the paging mechanism is displayed like this:
Thus, visitors are taken to the second page of products. Clicking “Next” again takes them to the third page of products. When they get to page 4,? the client? changes the paging mechanism as follows:
While we haven’t tested the solution yet, we believe it’s an effective solution. It will surely keep visitors from skipping 4 pages of products while shopping.