New Legal Requirements for Websites have Usability Implications

Far too often usability has been seen as a 'luxury' feature of commercial web projects; typically being the first requirement to be dropped as budgets get tighter. This finally looks set to change with the introduction of the Electronic Communications Regulations in 2002 which make it clear to designers that legally they must ensure that users can easily and efficiently complete transactions on-line – something we in the usability community have been arguing for for years.

The Electronic Communications Regulations contain a set of legal requirements for commercial web sites covering some aspects of usability and commercial communication. The regulations are intended to cover purchases of goods on-line as well as commercial services offered on the web in order to protect consumers.

Two key usability problems with current e-commerce web sites are touched upon by the regulations: the ambiguous display of prices and the unclear means of transaction completion. First, prices displayed on commercial web sites must now be clearly indicated and detail whether they are inclusive of tax and delivery costs – no more nasty surprises in the check out stage! Secondly, and possibly more technically complex to fulfil, are the requirements on transaction completion. To date, web site shopping baskets have had notoriously poor usability, especially in terms of completing purchases. One aspect of the new regulations require that consumers must be provided with clear descriptions of the different ways in which on-line transactions can be completed. More importantly, they state that there are effective and accessible means of correcting input errors prior to completion of the order – to be both effective and accessible will require serious usability work on the design of most current shopping baskets.

In terms of commercial communication, the regulations require e-commerce web sites to provide information on details such as the company’s name, geographical address, and contact details - which must be a direct means of effectively communicating with the company. Such contact details would provide a point of contact which could help to address post order problems encountered by consumers such as product returns, or items lost en-route. The regulations also cover commercial communications via email which must be clearly identified as commercial communications (rather than masquerading as personal emails). Moreover, unsolicited emails (e.g. spam) must be clearly identifiable as unsolicited when it is received by the consumer. This could open the door for effective filtering of spam email which would be a real boost for end-users.

The aim of the regulations are to establish a common standard for e-commerce within the European Union, and so to provide additional protection to consumers when purchasing on the web. Usability knowledge and expertise will be key to fulfilling requirements such as 'effective' and 'accessible' - we can all look forward to more usable e-commerce in the future as a result of these regulations.

Nick Bryan-Kinns
Optic Experience Design Ltd.

Associated Link: Electronic Communications Regulations

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