Here we go again, bloody marketers spouting on about users and now we have to have a seamless experience. I know what they mean but they’re sort of missing the point, we need to remove all pointless and useless seams - these are a right royal PITA and need to go. Clothing manufacturers worked that out a long, long, long time ago - putting extra seams into clothes was expensive, made them uncomfortable and more to the point who would do it on purpose?
Brought in a new media translation what these “bravehearts” are suggesting is the bloody obvious - of course we need to remove tedious stages in e-commerce and of course we need to have systems that remember you and your details to save you time but come on. Can they really hang their hat on something they should be doing anyway? Not likely, in my book.
Seams are good, attractive and can flatter
Well, that’s a thought - that’s how they are used in the clothing world so is there a way to make seams in the e-world behave similarly? Well, a little creative thinking and you’re away - maybe when you are halfway through the checkout process (where many people still leave the process) a nice bright, intrusive element appears thanking them for valued time and custom and promises a little surprise at the end of the process. Seamless might work to avoid decreases buying momentum but there are lots of things we can do to increase the momentum - why do we assume that our checkout process is so bad that it will put people off?
So, don’t take the new credos at face value - the real sentiment behind the idea is about the reduction of friction in the buying process but if you can make the checkout process part of the value then you will have to have seams.
Me? I like the seam on the front of my jeans-fly - without It would look very strange with the zip showing although it would be seamless.
