What are UX and UI and what do they mean in eCommerce

Do you know what UI and UX are? These abbreviations sound pretty foreign even to people who work in e-commerce daily. In this article, you’ll find out what UI and UX are, learn the differences between them, and find out if they’re important in e-commerce.

UX in eCommerce – what is it?

UX is the abbreviation for User Experience. It’s the process of designing an app while building the user’s experience in your online store. Each store owner, which probably means you, wants the user to complete certain tasks. The business goal is for example completing a purchase and the micro-goal of a specific page will be adding a product to the shopping cart. In e-commerce UX you mainly want the client who enters your store to complete a purchase. To do so, you have to offer him an easy and satisfying experience in your store. He shouldn’t have to wonder where a certain element is. Using the store should be simple and intuitive:

• the client should easily be able to find a product;
• the in-store search engine should be placed in a visible spot;
• the search results should be adapted to the client and presented clearly;
• the website of course, has to be responsive which means it should display itself correctly on all types of devices.

It is important to work out business goals. Check what the owner of the online store wants to achieve. However, you also need to research your target audience. Therefore, UX work includes workshops with someone who knows the purchasing persona.

In this case, you need to design a purchasing process divided into a few simple steps. Why? Because if you put all of the information in this process into one step, it may be too much at once for your target audience. Therefore, steps in this process might look like this for example:

• Login/Register
• Enter your details
• Choose the delivery form
• Choose the form of payment

Run A/B tests after implementing UX and UI

You have to decide whether you are starting with a new online store design or using what is already working well for the competition. It is good practice to research and compare. You can lean on a competitor that is already a leader and implement similar elements in your store. So at first, you can use what works great for the competition, and then use A/B testing and gradually implement small changes to achieve results even better than your template.

There are also certain standards and generally used practices that every UX designer knows and that he acquired while working with clients. There arę even sites like Goodui, where UX designers share the results of their A/B tests. However, the truth is that your store has a unique target group and of course, in the beginning, it is worth trusting the knowledge and experience of a UX designer, but later only A / B tests and customer satisfaction surveys will help you achieve the highest sales conversion and customer satisfaction.

UX in Prestashop

Let’s assume that you have a shopping cart divided into 3 stages on your website, but you’re wondering if it might be better to have one stage in your case. In Prestashop, creating a comparison like this is problematic. Prestashop does not have ready-made tools that will allow you to easily perform such tests. Front parts, like “add to cart” buttons, can be easily checked. However, in the purchasing process, it is more problematic. So it depends on whether it is about the visual front layer in the online store like for example displaying a banner, or a part of the shopping process, which is the shopping cart.

Remember! Even if you introduce something that you or the implementer thinks is best, you should still test it.

What is online store UI

UI is short for User Interface. Because of a bad UI, you can have a bad experience in the online store. The UI process comes after UX. If you omit UI design, the designer can create a product not so much for the target customer, but for himself. But what is UI? The UI is the visual layer of the online store. It consists in giving the mock-up created at the UX stage a visual part, which means the appropriate coloring of buttons, adding appropriate graphic design, etc. One of the examples of PrestaShop stores where UX and UI design is Brodrene.

The differences between UI and UX in e-commerce

In the UX process, you will plan where the search engine will be in your store and where the filters will be. In the UI process, you will choose the color of the buttons and give them the appropriate shadow, choose the appropriate graphic design for your store, etc. Of course, I am simplifying the whole process quite a bit. Because, for example, the next step at the UI stage will be compliance with the brand book, but we’ll talk about that another time. UI is the coloring of mock-ups, giving a design to mock-ups that were designed at the UX stage.

After the UI stage is completed, the UX designer should check whether what has been created is correct and in line with the previously set assumptions. Adjustments can also be made at this stage.

1. Do we improve UI or UX more in e-commerce? What has a bigger impact on the conversion in your online store? 

When you already have a functioning store with some graphic design, just improving the UX can give it a lot. For example, if you have designed a “SEARCH” button and it’s just about changing its position to make it more visible, then this change will give you the most.

It may also happen that you will need to change the position of individual elements and you will need a separate, properly designed UI project for this. For example, if you need to move the filter from the left bar to above the product list.

Remember, it all depends on the specific situation. 

2. Can we separate these two processes? 

In some situations, yes, but it is good that one process goes hand in hand with the other. You can separate them and change some elements when the store already exists and is functioning. However, when implementing and designing a new store, UX and UI are equally important.
If you are at the UI design stage, you must have a base for it, which means a mock-up created at the UX stage.

Summary – UI and UX in e-commerce

Thanks to this article, you already know what UX and UI are, but let’s summarize them as simply as possible:

• UX – at this stage you get to know the user and his needs, and you design functionalities.
• UI – giving a visual layer to your entire concept. Colloquially speaking, coloring and decorating.