HMV signposting helps to ease online journey

HMV is reinventing itself offline, this month opening its first dedicated gaming zone, while an outlet in Dudley sees it trial a range of digital concepts. the music retailer has also recently revamped and extended its online offer and its site shows how e-commerce can be compelling and satisfying to use.

HMV meets the needs of its customers by keeping the online journey simple, providing tools to help users select products and offers the widest possible access to both able and disabled site visitors.

HMV supports the habits of its customers especially well when they are searching for products. About half of site visitors are likely to be search dominant and the rest will prefer to browse. HMV’s search facility is consistently visible regardless of where you are on the site and provides flexible results, allowing users to locate specific products. This will certainly help Christmas shoppers this year and contribute to healthy online revenues at HMV.

HMV’s efforts to perfect the customer experience do not stop there. In Webcredible’s study of the usability of the top high street retailers, HMV scores top marks for providing clear navigational aids to help users orientate themselves while browsing.

Breadcrumb trails, prominent and descriptive headings, and highlighted navigation help HMV site users, while if online consumers are not quite sure what to buy they are given plenty of guidance with special offers, recommended items and lists of bestsellers. When they get to product pages, the site up-sells and cross-sells, directing customers to similar artists and genres, encouraging them to add more items to their basket. This is something that only 35% of other high street retailers surveyed managed to do effectively.

So, three cheers to the designers of His Masters Voice for making us usability folk proud.

Usability assessment provided by Webcredible