Amazon has just begun their operations in Sweden and amazon.se is therefore a site not so well-known to Swedish users. It strictly follows the UI of other Amazon sites. Since the service is new in Sweden I want to understand how it works in Sweden.
After having interviewed and observed two Swedish users on how their experiences are of the check-out process, I’ve organised the findings on an Affinity wall.
Two key issues
The lack of trusted Swedish payment alternatives
During my interviews and observations, it is evident that the payment methods provided by Amazon in Sweden wasn’t sufficient and to the liking of the users. It’s show in e.g. the following quote from a user; “I miss Klarna as an alternative for paying on amazon.se. It’s only ok to give away my credit card information since Amazon is such a huge company.”
In Sweden the major payment provider is Klarna. It is well integrated in most online stores. The experience is very easy to use and offers minimal friction to the user with a plethora of payment alternatives. It works like a local version of PayPal with even less friction during the check-out process. One major concern is to give away credit card numbers online. The only reason the user chooses to do so was that Amazon is such a huge company. There is a trust issue not using Klarna that the Amazon just barely made with its reputation.
Suggested solution
The solution is easy and straight forward, and it is to implement the Klarna check-out as an alternative at amazon.se.
10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design
Both participants that I observed encountered a lot of issues during their check-out. The issues ranged from not knowing if they were logged in or not, to not being able to step back and forward in the actual check-out process. There were also several occurrences with information overload that created friction during the process of checking out.
There were obvious breaches of the first usability heuristic, visibility of system status, where the users couldn’t determine whether they were logged in or not.
It was also clear that there were breaches of the second usability heuristics, at least for Swedish users since the payment options and delivery options weren’t up to pair with other popular solutions in Sweden.
Furthermore, the lack of a back door during the check-out process where the user can go back and forth in the process to secure that all information is correct is a clear breach of heuristic number three.
The check-out process is very cluttered and un-focused according to the users. Examples are the disclaimer showing on the first step of the check-out process and why the list with saved items almost seamless merges with the cart. These are all examples on breaches of the eight-usability heuristic.
Suggested solution
Setting up a joint task force with an integrated team of developers and designers to work through the process and eliminate the clear and present breaches of the usability heuristics described. Something that would benefit not only users in Sweden, but also customers panning the world of Amazon.