Alibaba search tool should not be “me too”
Do you know you can choose from a handful of pillows – soft, firm, medium soft or medium firm in hotel if you don’t feel comfortable with the one in your room? It is normally written in a table-top card with tiny little text.
Most often, site operators offer services or tools to users without giving them a clear indication or pronounced steps. Having devoted so much time and efforts in developing a tool or gadget, they may sadly find their user-centric tools are low in usage.
Play the hide-and-seek game?
Alibaba.com (HKSE1688) recently-launched search tool aimed at helping users saving time in sourcing products by having a quick access to the search tool in the browser window. The idea is great! The renowned B2B company has made a few user interface changes in the last couple months to enhance the site’s usefulness and make it more usable, yet the new tool may be a little difficult to capture users’ attention and fails to tell users how to make use of it.
The installation of the search tool merely relies on one link on the home page: “Add to Browser”. Should it be considered one of the buying tools and be listed on the “Buy Now“ channel? With a linkage in the buyer-related channel, it can leverage the traffic in the threshold and build up product coherence.
Users will question what will be added to their browsers if they luckily enough to spot the link. They will be hesitated and take a few seconds to think. The label unfortunately can’t tell users they are only a click away from “adding Alibaba Search bar to your search bar”. The pop-up with a brief explanation does some help if users mouse over the link, the site operator is taking chances though - not many users will have time to view all the details here.
Can we have a concise and clear explanation?
Another big issue is that as soon as Aliuser has installed the toolbar, there’s no explicit tips or description to tell how it works. It takes us a while to find out it is available in the search drop-down list. Aliuser would wonder how many users will look around for what has been done after the click-and-install process? How soon will they find out the new tool is hidden in the search options?
Alibaba Search tool Dropdown_ Alirens.com
In case users do not want the new tool, do they have a choice to take it out? How can buyers change the search default to Alibaba search?
Design for user experience not for the product iteslf
Designing a product can be an interesting process, it’s the user experience and the details that make the differences. Attention-to-Details does matter! Otherwise, the product will only be in a poor sleep mode all the time or just a “me too” alternative
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