Easter Eggs: UI / UX for E-Commerce

Manufacturing Joy for the End Consumer

The space bar as “enter” is not something that automatically happens or is accepted universally as a feature. It’s something that many programmers add in as a functionality feature of websites, search features, but not because it makes programmatic sense to do so. [It is easier to not add in this feature than it is to add it in.] As in, it’s not as if hitting the space bar is a feature that triggers a programmatic response such as submitting a form. It’s becoming more and more used, thus, adopted more frequently in website design, thus enforcing the behavior further.

Take Method, for example. Look at their laundry detergent pump. It took them years to train their consumer to get to that end-point, where that format, so totally different than the mass cup-and-pour models of yesterday, was something that could be easily adopted into mainstream consumers homes. Years ago, they only had their concentrated cup-and-pour models, weaning customers over large usage of detergent, proving that their liquid worked, before being able to hit something more similar to their end goal — a product with reduced consumption that hit their price point & user demographic.

It’s the same concept in marketing to your user a lifestyle, versus the key features of your product. How does your product help them achieve the vision of their lives they want to achieve? How they want to look to their friends? How they want to appear to their co-workers, peers? Your website is more than a virtual store, it’s your brand identity.

We’ve seen brands make massive comebacks with targeting towards their key users, but also the reverse. Take Axe marketing of yesteryear, the commercials where a single spray of Axe would send women flying. This worked — until it backed them into a corner they (almost) couldn’t get out of. Suddenly, anyone over the age of 18 didn’t want to be caught dead with their product, and no TV watching mother was buying their pubescent teen sex spray. They had hyper segmented their audience to an unsustainably small demographic, thus alienating their full customer base and true demographic sweet spot. Enter “find your magic” of 2016, where they pivot to tailor their brand to a more rounded and dynamic male character.

This leads me to the importance of “Easter eggs” in design (primarily for e-commerce & tech). Sure, your product or website might be functional, but is it fun? Do you enjoy using it, interacting with it?

The famous example that I’m obviously going to bring up is Tesla’s attention to such detail. More cowbell, please! Yes, it’s functionally useless. It is not better software because of it — or is it? The attention to building such features proves a deep understanding of the end user, and what type of person they want to emulate.

Service Design taught me to think about business like a play. Your business, is a play that’s always “on”, and your intermissions are done in a small theatre, so to speak. By that, I mean, highly public and that whisper really does echo in here. Anyways, back to this concept on a much smaller scale — the e-commerce website and the action play that happens along with it to keep it functioning and users pleased and on the site.

User Interface is the same concept in marketing to your user a lifestyle, versus the key features of your product. How does your product [your website] help them achieve the vision of their lives they want to achieve? How would they feel if a friend saw them looking at your website? How would you want them to feel?

Back to Tesla's attention to detail as a deep understanding of the play they are creating for their end consumer. It’s a knowledge of how that user wishes to live their live and the behaviors & lifestyle they wish to lead. Knowing that, knowing your customer on that level, you keep tweaking your play to their experience. That attention to building such features [like a fart button, more cowbell, high customization features on seating, sound, etc.] proves a critical understanding of the end user, and what type of person they want to emulate.

What’s your brand persona? Does the website design you implement continue to that impress that feeling on your end user? Do you know? You have to design with your end user in mind, and you have to study your end user in action to get there. This might feel a little ‘chicken & egg’, especially if you are attempting to draw new users to your e-commerce platform — but the fun thing about e-commerce is that you get to run multiple plays at once.

What kind of play does your customer want to watch? What kind of shopping experience will that make them have?

It’s easy to get lost in the joy of creating and building for building sake, but you cannot build just anything, you have to know what you are building. And to know something well, you have to be passionate about it. You have to act passionate about it.

To Marie Kondo that shit …. How does <> spark joy?

*Originally published on Medium