11 Best UI UX Design Practices for eCommerce in 2022
As business recovery from pandemic-induced shoppers’ phobia gathers pace in 2022, eCommerce organizations are looking at bolder strategies to entice buyers and convert browsers into purchasers. As a result, UI UX design for eCommerce is assuming greater significance as businesses strive to provide an engaging, convenient, and satisfying online shopping experience to customers. If you are finding yourself in the same boat as an eCommerce player, let’s take a look at some essential UI UX design practices that will be the trend in 2022.
1. Designing for Voice-Activated AI Shopping Assistants:
Many eCommerce players are already offering voice-activated shopping assistants to their customers. This is set to be the norm for UI UX design for eCommerce in 2022 rather than the exception. Imagine having a personal assistant or store clerk constantly at your disposal while you browse through catalogs of fashion, electronics, or home decor items. With the advent of AI-enabled voice-activated shopping assistants, this is now a reality in virtual shopping, and the potential is limitless.
This also provides UI UX designers with an opportunity to create more engaging and intuitive designs for voice-activated shopping experiences. In particular, designers need to focus on creating menus that are easy to navigate and understand and investing in voice search optimization early on in the design process.
2. Customizable Shopping Experiences:
The trend of personalization and customization will continue to grow in 2022. Customers now expect a more tailored shopping experience, one that is unique to their individual preferences and needs. eCommerce businesses that can provide this kind of experience will be more successful than those that cannot.
UI UX designers need to focus on creating designs that allow for a high degree of personalization. This could mean providing different layouts or templates for customers to choose from or allowing for more control over the look and feel of the shopping interface. Another example can be allowing users to opt-out of any holiday-related marketing emails that they do not wish to celebrate due to personal reasons. This not only takes personalization up a notch but also showcases the humane side of doing business.
3. Augmented Reality Shopping:
Augmented reality (AR) is another technology set to shift gears in 2022. With AR, shoppers can view products in a real-life setting before they purchase. This can help them get a better sense of the product’s size, color, and style. Additionally, AR can also provide additional information about products, such as how they are made or what ingredients are used.
As an eCommerce player, you need to make sure that your website is ready for AR shopping. This means having images of products that are high quality, and that can be rendered in AR. You also need to have an easy-to-use AR shopping portal that will allow customers to browse and purchase products. For example, Amazon has already introduced an AR shopping feature called “Amazon AR View” that enables customers to view furniture and home decor items in their own homes before they make a purchase.
4. Smart Content Loads:
In 2022, more and more customers will be using mobile devices to shop online. This means that your website needs to be optimized for different screen sizes and resolutions. Additionally, the website also needs to load quickly, even on low-bandwidth networks.
UI UX designers will need to leverage smart content loads to their full potential in 2022. This means designing pages that are easy to navigate and load quickly, even on low-resolution devices. Additionally, designers should also create modular designs that can be easily adapted to different screen sizes. Another approach is to use lazy loading, which loads images and other content only when needed. This will help keep the website fast even on low-bandwidth networks.
5. Using Social Proof:
In 2022 too, social proof will be a critical factor in influencing customer decisions. Therefore, eCommerce businesses must focus on building trust with their customers by showcasing customer testimonials, positive reviews, and other forms of social proof, especially on mobile apps. Other extensive forms of social proofs can include displaying quotes from experts, approval badges from review websites in the niche, product photos taken by customers, and more.
To create an effective social proof strategy, businesses need to understand their customers’ values. This could be anything from product quality to customer service. Then, they need to showcase the social proof prominently on your website and social media pages. This will help build trust with customers and increase the chances of them making a purchase.
6. Chatbots:
Chatbots are another technology that will see increased usage in 2022, especially now that they are equipped enough to mimic human conversation. By integrating chatbots with Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, eCommerce players can provide a more personalized shopping experience to their customers.
Chatbots can answer customer queries, provide product recommendations, and even process orders. They can also upsell and cross-sell products to customers. And now, chatbots can even detect customer sentiment and provide insights into what is working best for customers, which roadblocks they come across the most, the most engaging touchpoints in the customer journey, and so on.
7. Experimenting Boldly With Add-to-cart Buttons:
In 2022, eCommerce businesses will continue to experiment with different add-to-cart buttons. This could be anything from using unconventional colors or shapes to using more interactive buttons that allow customers to add products to their carts with a single click.
Designers will continue to use new and innovative ways to increase the conversion rate of add-to-cart buttons. This could involve using unconventional colors or shapes for the buttons or even incorporating more interactive elements into them. For example, using witty call-to-action texts that are enticing and action-oriented. Alternatively, they could also experiment with adding animation and sound effects to the buttons. This will help to create a more engaging user experience.
8. Guest Checkout Pages:
If your business strategy does not particularly revolve around customers making accounts on the ecommerce website, then guest checkout pages make a lot of sense for you. They might reduce the customer retention rate, but guest checkout pages can accelerate the checkout processes and prevent the fatigue of account creation that online shoppers often face. They can also drastically reduce cart abandonment rates.
Coupling this with the strategy of collecting emails or phone numbers for order confirmations can offset the decrease in retention rates. You can simply leverage customers’ contact details to follow up with new deals that they might like in shipping or post-delivery messages/emails.
9. Seamless Checkout Process:
The number one customer satisfaction strategy for eCommerce businesses is to provide faster checkouts to customers. And it makes sense since average cart abandonment rates often lie between 68–75%.
A streamlined checkout process can be the differentiating factor that helps eCommerce businesses convert more browsers into buyers. This could involve a one-page checkout process, auto-filling customer information, and pre-populating shipping information. It could also include using quick payment gateways that do not consume much time.
10. Micro-animations
Micro-animations are a great way to add engaging elements to your website without cluttering it up. They are small animations that usually last for no more than two seconds. And they can be used to convey a lot of information subtly.
For example, they can indicate the status of an action, such as whether or not a purchase has gone through. They can also be used to indicate the progress of a task, such as the loading of a page. Micro-animations are also great for adding personality to your website and helping to create a more engaging user experience.
11. More Use of Virtual Reality:
In 2022, eCommerce businesses will continue to experiment with virtual reality to provide a more immersive shopping experience for their customers. This could involve giving product tours using VR or even presenting customers the ability to try on clothes virtually before purchasing. Naturally, VR will be ( and already to some context is) one of the trending UI UX Design Practices for eCommerce in 2022
This will help create an even more engaging and realistic shopping experience for customers, resulting in higher conversion rates and increased customer loyalty. For example, today’s customers can check out the designs of cars and bikes through online virtual reality experiences that help them understand how the model will look in real life. And all this without even visiting the store!
Conclusion
As we’ve discussed, there are many strategies for driving customer engagement and conversion rates in eCommerce. But it all starts with understanding how your customers think at different stages of the buying process or lead funnel. Once you know that, it becomes easier to create targeted content and design strategies that appeal to them. And with the right tools and technology, you can go beyond just satisfying your customers — you can wow them!
So there you have it — our top picks for eCommerce trends in 2022! We hope this article helps you stay ahead of the curve. And, provides you with some ideas for improving your own eCommerce business. Thanks for reading!
