Amazon - Web Design Principles & Mobile Application Experience

Amazon follows good web design principles. Design is not just something designers do. Design is marketing. Design is your product and how it works. The more I’ve learned about design, the better results I’ve gotten. Recently, I needed to make an online purchase and immediately went to Amazon.com. That got me thinking – why did I automatically choose Amazon?

Was it because I knew their prices were competitive? Was it because I knew they had a large range of products? Was it because they offered free two-day shipping with an Amazon Prime membership? Or was it because I knew they would have a lot of product reviews?

This really got me thinking. Why do millions of Americans and customers from around the world buy from Amazon? It’s like they have this competitive advantage that no other e-commerce retailer has. It couldn’t simply come down to the price, could it?

Price isn’t the sole reason you and millions of others shop at Amazon. You do it because they offer the best e-commerce customer experience. Below are some list that make Amazon follow good web design principles.

Self-service support - For your e-commerce business, this means offering comprehensive information about your products on your website. This could be in the form of detailed and accurate product information, a wide range of product photos and/or real reviews from customers. Amazon exceeds customer expectations by offering a wide range of information that helps its customers find answers to their questions themselves. Nearly all products sold by Amazon have a detailed product description that is full of information – often information you can’t even find on the manufacturer’s own website.

Mobile-first experience - With over 50% of users now visiting your e-commerce site via mobile, you need to consider a mobile-first strategy. A mobile-first strategy involves creating an experience with the mobile visitor in mind, from the design of your e-commerce website to your emails and transnational payment systems. Amazon’s mobile-first approach is industry-leading. Their mobile site is super easy to navigate, find information and make purchases. Navigating through a site of Amazon’s size could be considered difficult on a mobile device because they have so many products, but by taking a mobile-first approach, they have found a way to make the experience easy through smart categorization and search functionality.

Smart convenience features like auto-fill on the search engine and 1-click ordering have been designed for the mobile user. Any time you make the experience easier for a customer, you create a sense of loyalty and they will remember that easy experience next time they consider buying a product with you.