Site search

Cathay Pacific unveils new responsive site, but fails to optimise checkout

A few weeks ago I reviewed the state of web design in Asia’s airline industry.

It was surprising to find that these major brands expected customers to put up with clunky, out-dated web forms and a difficult purchase journey.

But Cathay Pacific was clearly already aware of the issue and has just unveiled a new responsive site as part of a wider rebranding exercise that seeks to present a “simpler, cleaner, more customer-focused Cathay Pacific brand.”

I’d like to claim that my blog post spurred it all, but it actually comes after 18 months of planning.

The resulting philosophy will guide the design of “new websites, lounges, cabins, in-flight service, entertainment products” and more.

From our point of view the most interesting feature is the new website. So, what’s it like?

B&Q’s new £60m responsive website reviewed

You can’t buy much for £60m these days.

That’s the amount Real Madrid paid for James Rodriguez, the sum that Michael Gove wanted to spend on a new yacht for the Queen, and the exact figure that B&Q has apparently invested in its new website.

Clearly the home and garden retailer didn’t wish to be outdone by Selfridges, which recently invested a mere £40m to revamp its website.

When I interviewed Michael Durbridge, B&Q’s director of omnichannel, last September he said that the new site would be launched alongside an upgrade to the company’s backend systems.

This would allow the website and in-store ordering systems to run off the same database, with the user interface customised for each channel. B&Q would then have taken a huge step towards forming a single customer view.

So, just how good is this new £60m responsive site?

Mega menu design trends in ecommerce: 2011 vs. 2014

Way, way back in 2011 we published an article looking at how 26 commerce sites presented their mega menus.

This refers to the drop-down menus that are generally situated within the horizontal navigation at the top of a webpage.

Web trends and UX design have changed in the intervening years, in large part due to increasing consumer adoption of mobile and new technologies such as responsive design, so I thought it would be interesting to revisit those same sites to see how they’ve evolved.

Here they are…

Nine examples of search tools from automotive websites

I’ve looked at search and comparison tools on automotive sites in the past, and there was a lot of room for improvement. 

Some automotive brands, accustomed for so long to the dealership sales process, were slow to adapt to and take advantage of ecommerce. 

Now, with some stats suggesting that up to 94% of people are researching cars online before purchase, the online user experience is all important. 

Here are some examples from the major automotive brands. 

The rise and rise of search

The recent preview of OS X Yosemite from Apple caused predictable amounts of chatter online (including this article) and rightly so.

Sales of Macs hit 4.8m in Q1 2014, up from 4.1m for the same holiday period in 2013. OS X has a big impact on the conventions of UI and UX.

The feature I saw the most buzz about on social is the improved Spotlight. The feature has a new search window and a rich, scrollable preview of results that finds stuff on your Mac but now also Wikipedia, Bing, Maps, and other sources.

This is the latest reminder of how powerful search is and how consumers increasingly rely on it across technology and the web.

Site search and filtering is still a UX flaw for fashion retailers

Site search and product filters are an important part of the purchase journey and overall user experience on ecommerce sites.

If customers are unable to find what they’re looking for quickly and conveniently then it’s unlikely that they’ll stick around for very long.

A new report into the usability of online fashion retailers has found that several major brands have failed to get to grips with product search, which is likely impacting their conversion rates.

On the other end of the scale, women’s retailers Hobbs and Oasis were found to be providing an excellent user experience at this stage of the purchase journey.

The research was conducted by a panel of UX professionals who assessed each site in the context of a core user journey of browsing and purchasing an item.

cancelling credit card

Cancelling a credit card online: why is it so difficult?

Credit card lenders operate in a tightly regulated industry with strict rules governing how they market their products, and rightly so.

Unfortunately the regulations don’t extend to laying down rules for improving the UX of their websites.

Having paid off my Tesco credit card sometime ago I thought it about time that I cancelled it so I’m not tempted to plunge myself back into further debt.

Considering the ease with which I signed up to the credit card in the first place, I naively assumed it would be equally simple to rid myself of the unwanted contract. How wrong I was.

Nike edges out competition in UX test of global sports brands

Nike has edged out the competition in a report that compares the online buying experience offered by seven of the world’s top sports brands.

The latest Qubit benchmark looks at the on-site effectiveness and UX of Nike, Adidas, Reebok, Puma, Fila, Asics and Converse.

Sites are judged based on more than 80 industry best practice criteria that give an insight into the UX and how easy it is for visitors to make a purchase.

As mentioned, Nike came out on top with a score of 80% closely followed by Adidas with 79%. Reebok came in third with 68%, just two points above the average score of 66%.

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