Credit Card Entry Redesigned

Given the volume of online shopping [1] these days one would assume that customers are comfortable enough with the credit card entry interface for shopping online by now and that the interface is pretty much established. Well Ken Keiter definitely does not think so.

In his article “Redesigning Credit Card Inputs” Ken talks about skeuomorphism (which I heard for the first time) and why he decided to redesign the credit card entry process. I recommend you read the article but for me one comment really stood out:

Every question a user has to ask themselves during the checkout process is another reason for them not to complete it.

While it sure is challenging, this level of attention to every little detail of the user experience design is what makes products, services, and websites stand out and in the end achieve more success than its competitors. It is what Steve Jobs did with iPhone and revolutionized the cell phone industry. It is what Disney is working on in trying to improve every aspect of the user experience design for all visitors to its theme parks.

Of course paying this level of attention to all facets of user experience design is almost impossible (and in most cases not desired) for a start-up but you and your team members should be mindful of and try to embrace it in your decisions. When discussing whether to add a feature or how to implement an user interface element, you should always ask if it is needed and whether there is a better and more natural way to present it to your users?

While these discussions might slightly increase your work load initially, pretty soon this kind of approach will start to become the norm and you will hopefully end up with a much better thought out product.

Anyway check out Skeuocard for yourself and decide if you would like to incorporate it in your site.

[1] In 2011 “2-commerce B2C product sales totaled $142.5 billion, representing about 8% of retail product sales in the United States.” — Source: Wikipedia.