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I’ve recently made my first foray into designing ecommerce sites. After years of sculpting pixels for news, polling and data interfaces, I now find myself thinking about sales… all the time. It is a strange transition to make, and I admit to feeling a bit awkward and out of place during the first few months. That uncomfortable feeling was a byproduct of trying to rethink how I design (too much at times, not enough at others).

• When referring to a site as a “brochure” site, I mean it is informational in nature. The site is more a byproduct of the business, not the business itself.
• When referring to a site as an “ecommerce” site, I mean it sells many different items via an online portal. The site is the business itself.

How the Goals Differ:

Brochure Sites

The purpose is to create a brand impression and give general information. Users should be able to get around easily. Most sites would love to generate clients leads. Those contacts aren’t generated through submitting credit card information, but instead from a contact form or phone call.

Ecommerce Sites

These sites live and breathe because of their customers. It isn’t enough to attract people to your homepage, it is necessary that the user finds something they like – hopefully without frustration – and then proceeds to complete the checkout process for that item. Most good ecommerce sites convert 3% of their users to sales. That is awfully small number when you take into account the fact that users arrived at your site specifically because they wanted to buy something (or do research about buying).

How the UI Differs:

Brochure Sites

While the UI is important on all websites, it is typically much simpler when constructing a brochure site. At most, you are concerned with a few tiers of navigation. Any decently conceived horizontally or left-aligned vertical navigation will normally accomplish the task quite well. On an e-commerce site it is a much more complex endeavor.

Ecommerce Sites

For large sites, there are two kinds of ways the user needs to navigate. On Target.com or BestBuy.com, the user must first find their appropriate item category then hone that category based on attributes like color, price or brand. Sites like Amazon and Ebay have survived (even thrived) in large part to their excellent navigation, search and filtering options.

It gets even more complicated. Once a user clicks to see details of a particular item, they need to know how to add that item to their basket and checkout through a painless process that collects their information. People hate forms. I hate forms. Forms and user work-flow need to be impeccable when it is an easy time to frustrate someone.

How the Use of Space Differs:

Brochure Sites

This completely depends on your client. I love using generous white-space, padding and margins, but many clients just don’t understand why you aren’t filling the entire page with information. If you can convince them that users are comfortable scrolling and that the space allows the eye to breath – then you are well on your way. The key here is that every pixel doesn’t need to “convert”. Since you are creating a brand impression, it is more important to get your message across simply.

Ecommerce Sites

Ideally, these sites should feel simple as well. But you can’t use white-space as liberally as you do on other sites. It is important to always remember that users came to your site to find a product that they are interested in buying or researching. Most of them don’t know the exact product right off-the-bat. They know a general product category, style and price range – but none of the details.

Nothing could be more important than an easily navigable list that allows them to filter by a variety of categories. But that list needs to be efficient (load time), simple (visually), and full of information (ratings, price, details,etc.).

There are a number of great ecommerce sites that actually combine the simple and the complex. They do so by creating a simple homepage but a packed list page with plenty of items and item-details. The home page establishes the concise brand message they are looking for while the interior page acknowledges the primary importance of usability for their shoppers.

How Brochure and Ecommerce Sites are the Same

Content. It leads to success on any avenue. Whether that content is a dynamic – detail rich – list of every Snuggie available or an articulate brand message that hits your viewer to their core, it is the most crucial piece to every website. Think about it. What makes Ebay and Amazon so successful? Users know that 99% of the time, one of those sites will have the exact product they are looking for. They keep coming back to those sites because they realize how easily they can find that product and follow through with a purchase.

If you don’t have a designer (or even a developer), start by focusing on what you are offering. Communicate that clearly and the rest will follow.