Clothes on Line 2007 Report: The UK Usability League for Clothing Websites

The question most often asked is "How does my site compare with our competitors?" Using examples taken from the online retail clothing sector, Clothes On Line 2007 highlights what the sector can be proud of and how it is positioned for future growth and development. With online clothing sales breaking the 1billion barrier in 2006, bit10 revisited the online clothing market and carried out its second test of the sector, looking for examples of 'best practice' and 'things to avoid'. Each site tested was exposed to 10 shoppers from a range of target demographics who were asked to undertake specific tasks. The 'Clothes On Line 2007' study details 4 key issues and the problems experienced by the shoppers.
1. Goodwill - shoppers have a certain amount of goodwill towards any retailer...in general, anything that took longer, or seemed to take longer than participants felt it was reasonable, used up considerable goodwill
2. Accessibility - the sites were also tested by a blind user (using a screen-reader) who found, amongst other things, that generally the text was too small and there was missing instructional text
3. Shopability (finding items and putting them in the basket) - product pages unstructured/cluttered and items not where shoppers expected
4. Buyability (process that starts when a shopper goes to checkout) - unsophisticated checkout processes. The report provides the most up to date research on usability in online clothing within the UK market.